Marion Harland's 
Autobiography 



THH STORY OF A LONG LIFE 




HARF^ER^S- BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

M C M X 



o*'^ 

?'^'.^'^ 



Copyright, igio, by Harpkr & Brothers 



At! rights restned 



Published April, 19'° 
Prin'.tdin the Uniled Stalls 0/ AmtrUa 



(g.C!.A^(Ua92 



WITH 

REVERENT TENDERNESS 

THIS SIMPLE STORY OF MY LONG LIFE 

IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF 

A\Y FATHtR 



CONTENTS 

niAP PAOK 

I. FoREHEARS AND PaTRON SaINT 1 

II Lakayette; H evolutionary Tales; Parents' Mar- 

riage 16 

III A Country PIxile; Death of the KiimT-BoRN; Change 

OF Home; A l"iRi-:fliDE Tragedy; "CooiTti, I-^roo 
Sum" 27 

I\' A liERSERKER Rage; A Fright; The Wf^tern Fever; 

Mf)NTU«)SE; A Mother Uegaineu 37 

V. Oik Powhatan Home; A C<jrNTRy Finkkal; "(Jlu 

Mits. O'Hara" 52 

\'l. C)m)-Fashionki) Husband's Lovk-Letter; An Almost 
Homicide; A "Slauohtehkd Mt)N.sTER": A \Vi-:s- 
LEYAN Schoolmistress Cl 

\II My First TuTt)R; The Reion (jf Terror .... 70 

\'1II Calm .\fter Storm; Our Handsome Yankee Govern- 
ess; The Nascent Aitthor si 

IX. .\ College Neiohhorhood; The Would Widens; A 
Beloved Tutor; (V)Lonization Dreams and Dis- 
appointment; Major Morton 1H3 

Family Letters; Commencement at H \MrDFN-Sin\EY; 

Then AND Now KH 

Back in Powhatan; Old Virginia Housewifery; \ 

Sinoing-Class in the Forties; The Simple Life? 110 
Election Day and a Democratic Barbecue . . . 117 

A Whig Rally and Muster Day 129 

Rumors of Changes; A Corn-Shucking; A Negro 

Topical Bono 143 

XV. The Country Girls at a Cm' School; Velvet H.ats 

and Clay's Defeat 149 

V 



X 


XI. 


XII. 


XIII 


XIV. 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

XVI. Home at Christmas; A Candy- Pull and Hog- 

Killing 162 

XVII. A Notable Affair op Honor 171 

XVIII. The Menace of Slave Insurrection 186 

XIX. Wedding and Bridesmaid; The Routine of a Large 

Family; My First Bereavement 196 

XX. Our True Family Ghost-Story 203 

XXI. Two Monumental Friendships 218 

XXII. The "Old African Church" 227 

XXIII. How "Alone" Came to Be 237 

XXIV. The Dawning of Literaky Life 246 

XXV. Brought Face to Face with My Fate 254 

XXVI. Literary Well-Wishers; George D. Prentice; 

Mrs. Sigourxey; Grace Greenwood; H. W. 
Longfellow; James Redpath; The "Wander- 
ing Jew" 262 

XXVII. My Northern Kinspeople; "Quelqu'un" and 

Lifelong Friendship 270 

XXVIII. My First Opera; "Peter Parley"; Rachel as 

"Camille"; Bayard Taylor; T. B. Aldrich; 
G. P. Morris; Maria Cummins; Mrs. A. D. T. 
Whitney 280 

XXIX. Anna Cora (Mo watt) Ritchie; Edward Everett; 

Governor Wise; A Memorable Dinner- Party 288 

XXX. A Musical Convention; George Francis Root; 

When "The Shining Shore " was First 
Sung; The Hallelujah Chorus; Betrothal; 
Dempster in His Old Age 297 

XXXI. Wedding Bells; A Bridal Tour; A Disco \t:red 

Relative; A Noble Life 304 

XXXII. Parsonage Life; William Wirt Henry; His- 

toric Soil; John Randolph; The Last of the 
Randolphs 313 

XXXIII. Plantation Preaching ; Colored Communicants; A 

"Mighty Man in Prayer" 325 

XXXIV. My Novitiate as a Practical Housewife; My 

Cook "Gets Her Hand Out"; Inception of 
"Common Sense in the Household" .... 333 
vi 



C O NT E N r S 



CHAP, 



XXXV. TnK Stirred "Nest Amonc; the Oaks"; A Crucial 

Crisis 31G 

XXXN'l. MiGR.\TioN NouriiWAUo; Acclimation; Aluert 

Edward, Prince of Wales, in New York; 

Political Portents 355 

XXX\II. The Panic ok '(Jl; A Virginia X.m aiion: Mi i-ilu- 

iNus OK Coming Storm 363 

XXXVIII. The Focrteenth ok April, Isiil, in Ki« ii.m(im) . 370 

XXXIX. "The Last Throlgh Train for Focr Years" . 382 
XL. Domestic Sorrows and National Storm and 

Stress; Friends, Tried and Trite .... 3S9 

XLL Fort Delaw.\.re; "Old Gu)Ry"; Lincxjln's Assas- 

sination; The Released Prisoner ok War. 399 

XLIL .V Chrlstmas Reunion; A Midnight Warning; How 
A Good M.v.n Came to "The Happiest Day of 
His Life" 408 

.\LIIL Two IJridals; A Hirth and a Pa.ssing; ".Mv Little 

I^ve"; "Drifting Out"; A Nonpareil Parish 417 

XLIV. Two Years Overseas; Life in Rome a.nd Ge.neva 427 

XLV. Scn.nvhank; .\ New Kngla.vd Parish: "Mv liovs"; 

Two "Starred" Names 43G 

XLVL Return To Middle States; The HoL'i Land; My 
Friends the Mi.><sionaries; Two Consuus in 
Jeritsalem 448 

XLVn. Lucer.ne; Good Samaritans and w 1.\(;i.i>hman; 
A Lecture Tour; Ohioan Hospitality; Mr. 
AND Mrs. McKinley 457 

XLVin. The Cloi'ds Return .\fter the Rain; .Xhroad 
.\gain; Healing and Health; Idyllic Winter 
IN Florence 470 

XLIX. The Going-Out of a Younc; Like: Prese.nt -Ac- 
tivities; "Literary Hearthstones"; Grate- 
ful Reminiscences 4.S1 

Appendix 491 

A Fraternal Tribute 
The Golden Weddinq 



FOREWORD 

From the time when, as a mere baby, I dreamed my- 
self to slumber every night by "making up stories," down 
to the present hour, every human life with which I have 
been associated, or of which I had any intimate knowl- 
edge, has been to me a living story. All interest me in 
some measure. Many enlist my sympathy and fascinate 
the imagination as no tale that is avowedly fictitious has 
ever bewitched me. 

I hold and believe for certain that if I could draw aside 
the veil of conventional reserve from the daily thinking, 
feeling, and living of my most commonplace acquaintance, 
and read these from "Preface" to "Finis," I should rate 
the wildest dream of the novelist as tame by comparison. 

My children tell me, laughingly, that I "turn every- 
thing into a story." In my heart I know that the ro- 
mances are all ready-made and laid to my hand. 

In the jjages that follow this word of exi)lanation I 
have essayed no dramatic effects or artistic "situations." 
"The Story of My Long Life" tells itself as one friend 
might talk to another as the two sit in the confidential 
firelight on a winter evening. The idea of reviewing that 
life upon paper first came to me with the consciousness — 
which was almost a shock — that, of all the authors still on 
active professional duty in our country, I am the only one 
whose memory runs back to the stage of national history 
that preceded the Civil War by a quarter-century. I, 
alone, am left to tell, of my own knowledge and experience, 



FOREWORD 

what the Old South was in deed and in truth. Other and 
far abler pens than mine have portrayed scenes of those 
days with skill I cannot emulate. But theirs is hearsay 
evidence — second-hand testimony as truly as if they wrote 
of Shakespeare's haps and mishaps in the grammar-school 
at Stratford-on-Avon, or of Master George Herbert's early 
love affairs. 

True, the fathers told it to the generation following, and 
the generation has been faithful to the traditions com- 
mitted to it. What I have to say in the aforesaid gossip 
over the confidential fire is of what I saw and heard and 
did — and was in that hoary Long Ago. 

Throughout the telling I have kept the personal touch. 
The story is autobiography — not history. I began it for 
my children, whose importunities for tales of the olden — 
and now forever gone — "times" have been taken up by 
the least grandchild. 

It was my lot to know the Old South in her prime, and 
to see her downfall. Mine to witness the throes that 
racked her during four black and bitter years. Mine to 
watch the dawn of a new and vigorous life and the full 
glory of a restored Union. I shall tell of nothing that my 
eyes did not see, and depict neither tragedy nor comedy 
in which I was not cast for a part. 

Mine is a story for the table and arm-chair under the 
reading-lamp in the living-room, and not for the library 
shelves. To the family and to those who make and keep 
the home do I commit it. 

Marion Harland. 

New York City, November, 1909. 



MARION HARLAN D'S 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



MARION HARLANDS 
A U T O B I O G R A P II Y 



FOREBEARS AND PATRON SAINT 

Mv fatluT, Saiiiut'l Pierce Ilawes, was honi in the town 
of Doirliester. Massaduisetts. July 30. 17!M). 

The hoincstoiid, still standing and reckoned ainon^ the 
notable sites of the region, wa.s built in KilO. by KoIkmI 
Pioree, who emigrated to the New ^^'orld in WM), having 
saile<l from Plymouth, Kn<iland, in the Marif and John, 
in eom|)any with othei"s of the ^hlssaehusetts Bay Colony. 
On tile voyage, he married Ann Greenaway — registered as 
"Daughter of (loodman Greenaway," a fellow-passenger. 

The family trace their descent, by old domestic and town 
records, from the Northumberland Percies. Tniditions, 
chenshed by the rac(\ affirm that Godfrey of Houillon was 
a remote ancestor. It is umjuestionably true that " Robert 
of Dorchester," as he is put down in the genealogy of the 
Percies, was a blood relative of .Master George Percy, John 
Smitli's friend, and his successor in the ])residency of the 
Jtlmestown colony. 

The emigrants had a temj)oraiy home in Neponset 
Village. j)rospering .>o far in worldly sul)stance as to justify 
the erection of the sul)stantial house upon the hill over- 

1 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

looking the ''village," ten years after the landing. So 
substantial was it, and so honest were the builders, that it 
has come down in a direct line from father to son, and been 
inhabited by ten generations of thrifty folk who have left 
it stanch and weatherproof to this day. 

My father's mother, a handsome, wilful girl of seventeen, 
ran away to be married to one whom her father — "Squire 
Pierce" — considered a presumptuous adventurer. He was 
from Maine, a stranger in the neighborhood, and re- 
puted (justly) to be wild and unsteady. When he asked 
for the girl's hand he was summarily commanded to hold 
no further communication with her. He had served as a 
private in the Revolutionary War; he had winning ways 
and a good-looking face, and Ann had a liberal spice of her 
sire's unbending will. She would have him, and no other 
of the youths who sued for her favor. 

The family genealogy records that "Squire Pierce," 
as he was named by his neighbors, received a captain's 
commission from the parent government at the outbreak 
of the Rebellion, and on the self-same day one from the 
Continental Congress appointing him as a colonel in the 
Massachusetts forces. As "Colonel Pierce," he fought 
throughout the eight bloody years to which we owe our 
national life. 

In his home he was a despot of the true Puritan, patri- 
archal type. 

For three years after the elopement the name of his 
daughter's husband was never uttered in his hearing. Nor 
did she enter the house, until at twenty, her proud spirit 
bowed but not broken by sorrows she never retailed, she 
came back to the old roof-tree on the eve of her confine- 
ment with her first and only child. He was born there 
and received the grandfather's name in full. From that 
hour he was adopted as a son of the house by the stem old 
Puritan, and brought up at his knees. 

2 



FOREBEARS AND PATRON SAINT 

With the shrewd sense and sturdy independence charac- 
teristic of the true New-Englander, the mother was never 
forgetful of the fact that her boy was half-orphaned and 
dependent upon his grandfather's bounty, and began early 
to equip him for a single-handed fight with the world. 

Within a decade I have studied an authentic and de- 
tailed genealogy of the Hawes stock from which my grand- 
father sprang. It is a fine old English family, and the 
American branch, in which appear the birth and death 
of Jesse Hawes, of Maine, numbers many men of distinction 
in various professions. It is a comfort to a believer in 
heredity to be assured that the tree was sound at heart, in 
spite of the warped and severed bough. 

By the time my father was fourteen, he was at work in a 
Boston mercantile house, boarding with his employer, 
Mr. Baker, a personal' friend of the Pierces. The growing 
lad walked out to Dorchester every Saturday night to spend 
Sunday at home and attend divine service in the " Dorches- 
ter Old Mee ting-House," the same in which I first saw and 
heard Edward Everett Hale, over forty years later. The 
youth arose, in all weathers, before the sun on Monday 
morning in order to be at his place of business at seven 
o'clock. When he was sixteen, his employer removed to 
Richmond, Virginia, and took his favorite clerk with him. 
From Boston to the capital of the Old Dominion was then 
a fortnight's journey by the quickest mode of travel. The 
boy could hardly hope to see his mother even once a year. 

At twenty-five he was an active member of the First 
Presbyterian Church in Richmond, established and built 
up by Rev. John Holt Rice, D.D., who was also the founder 
of Union Theological Seminary, now situated in Richmond. 
The young New-Englander was, likewise, a teacher in the 
Sunday-school — the first of its kind in Virginia, conducted 
under the auspices of Doctor Rice's church — a partner in a 
flourishing mercantile house, and engaged to be married to 
2 3 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Miss Judith Anna Smith, of Olney, a plantation on the 
Chickahominy, five miles from the city. 

I have a miniature of my father, painted upon ivory a 
few years after his marriage. It is that of a handsome 
man, with deeply set gray eyes, very dark hair, and a well- 
cut, resolute mouth. The head is nobly shaped, the fore- 
head full and broad. His face was singularly mobile, and 
deeply lined, even in youth. 

In intellect he was far above the average business man. 
His library, at that early date, was more than respectable. 
Some of the most valuable early editions of the English 
classics that enrich my book-shelves have his book-plate 
upon the fly-leaves. He had, moreover, a number of 
standard French books, having studied the language with 
a tutor in the evenings. The range of his reading was 
wide and of a high order. Histories, biographies, books of 
travel, and essays had a prominent place in his store of 
"solid reading." That really good novels were not in- 
cluded in this condemnation we learn from a brief note to 
his betrothed, accompanying a copy of Walter Scott's 
Pirate. He apologizes for the profanity of certain charac- 
ters in semi-humorous fashion, and signs himself, "Your 
friend, Samuel." 

Doctor Rice, whose wife was my mother's first cousin, 
appreciated young Hawes's character and ability; the 
parsonage was thrown o]Den to him at all times, and 
within the hospitable precincts he first met his future wife. 

She was a pretty, amiable girl of eighteen, like himself 
an omnivorous reader, and, like him also, a zealous church- 
worker. 

Her father, Capt. William Sterling Smith, was the master 
of the ancestral estate of Olney, rechristened in the latter 
part of the eighteenth century by an ardent admirer 
of William Cowper. I am under the impression that the 
change of name was the work of my grandmother, his second 

4 



FOREBEARS AND PATRON SAINT 

wife, Miss Judith Smith, of Montrose, and a second cousin of 
"Captain Sterhng," as he was famiUarly called. 

Late in the seventeenth century, William Smith, of 
Devonshire, a lineal descendant of the brother and heir 
of Capt. John Smith of Pocahontas fame, married Ann 
Sterling in England, and, emigrating to America, pitched 
his moving tent, first in Gloucester, then in Henrico County. 
His cousin, bearing the same name, took up land in Pow- 
hatan, naming his homestead for the hapless Earl of 
Montrose. The questionable custom of the intermarriage 
of cousins prevailed in the clan, as among other old Vir- 
ginia families. 

My maternal grandmother was petite, refined in feature, 
bearing, and speech, and remarkable in her day for in- 
tellectual vivacity and moral graces. Her chief associates 
of the other sex were men of profound learning, distin- 
guished for services done to Church and State. Among 
them were the founders of the Presbyterian Church in 
Virginia. The Smiths had seceded from the Established 
Church of England before Thomas Jefferson rent it from 
the State. 

There lies at my elbow a time-worn volume bound in un- 
pohshed calf-skin, and lettered on one side, " D. Lacy's 
Letters"; on the reverse, "Friendship Perpetuated." It 
contains one hundred and forty-two letters, copied from 
the original epistles and engrossed in exquisitely neat and 
minute characters. They represent one side of a cor- 
respondence maintained by the scribe with my grand- 
mother before and after her marriage. The writer and 
copyist was the Rev. Drury Lacy, D.D., then a professor in 
Hampden Sidney College, and destined to become the 
progenitor of a long line of divines and scholars. The 
Hoges, Lacys, Brookeses, and Waddells were of this 
lineage. The epistles are Addisonian in purity of moral 
teaching and in grammatical structure, Johnsonian in 

5 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

verboseness, and interfused throughout with a pietistic 
priggishness all their own. We are glad to carry with us 
through the perusal (in instalments) of the hundred and 
forty-two, the tales current in that all-so-long-ago of the 
genial nature and liveliness of conversation that made 
him a star in social life. One wonders, in hearing of the 
"perpetuation" of the brotherly -and -sisterly intimacy, 
begun months before he wedded the "Nancy" of the 
Montrose group, who, from all I have been able to gather, 
was a very commonplace personage by comparison with 
"Judith" — one marvels, I say, that the affection never 
ripened into a warmer sentiment. They had themselves 
better in hand evidently than the "affinities" of the 
twentieth century. 

Old people I knew, when a child, delighted in relating 
how, when "Mr. Lacy" held meetings in country churches 
in Powhatan and Prince Edward, and his sister-in-law was 
in the congregation, everybody listened for the voices of 
those two. His was strong, flexible, and sweet, and he read 
music as he read a printed page. While she, as an old 
admirer — who up to his eightieth year loved to visit my 
mother that he might talk of his early love — used to declare, 
"sang like an angel just down from heaven." 

She added all womanly accomplishments to musical skill 
and literary tastes. An embroidered counterpane, of which 
I am the proud owner, is wrought in thirteen varieties of 
stitch, and in patterns invented by herself and three sisters, 
the only brother contributing what may be classed as a 
"conventional design" of an altar and two turtle-doves 
perched upon a brace of coupled hearts — symbolical of his 
passion for the beauty of the county, Judith Mosby, 
of Fonthill, whom he married. Our Judith held on the 
peaceful tenor of her way, reading all the books she could 
lay her shapely hands upon, keeping up her end of 
correspondences with Lacys, Rices, Speeces, Randolphs, 

6 



foreiu:ars and patuox saint 

and lilaiiu's. iiiul j::('iitly rejecting one offer after another, 
until she married at thirty-three — an advanced stage of 
spinsterdorn, then — honest I'apt. Sterhng Smith, the 
widower-father of three chil(h*en. 

Her husband was the proprietor of broad acres, a man 
of birth and fair eckication, high-minded, honorabU*. and 
devoted to his deheate wife. Nevertheless, the dainty 
chatelaine must, sometimes, have missed lier eru(Ute ad- 
mirei>!, and wished in licr heart that tlie worthy planter 
were, intellectually, more in tune with hei'self. 

My own mother's recollections of her mother were vivid, 
and I never wearied of hearing them. My grandmother's 
wediling night-gown, which I have, helps me to picture her 
iis she moved alx)Ut the modest homestead, directing and 
overseeing servants, key-ba.'^ket on arm, keej)ing, a.s she 
did, a daily record of jirovisions "given out" from stortv 
room and smoke-house, writing down in her hand-lKKjk 
biils-of-fare for the week (my mother treasured them for 
years), entertaining the friends attracted by her influence, 
lier husband's hos|)itality, and his two daughteivi' channs 
of pei"son and (lis[M)sition. 

This gown is of fine cambric, with a falling collar and a 
short, shirred waist. The buttons are wooden moulds, 
covered with cambric, and each bears a tiny embroidereil 
sprig. Collar and sleeves arc trimmed with rullles. worked 
in scallojxs by her deft fingers. The owner and wearer was 
below the medium height of women, and slight to fragility, 
lier love of the beautiful fountl expression in her ex(|ui- 
site needlework, in copying "commonplace-books" full of 
poetry and the music she loved passionately, and most 
liealthful of all, in flower-gardening. Within my memory, 
the white jessamine planted by her still draped the window 
of "the chamber" on the first floor. Few Virginia house- 
wives would consent to have their bedrooms uj)-staii-s. 
"Looking after the servants" was no idle figure of speech 

7 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

with them. Eternal vigilance was the price of home 
comfort. A hardy white-rose-tree, also planted by her, 
lived almost as long as the jessamine — her favorite flower. 

In the shade of the bower formed by these, Mrs. Judith 
Smith sat with her embroidery on summer days, her little 
name-daughter upon a cricket beside her, reading aloud 
by the hour. It was rather startling to me to learn that, 
at thirteen, the precocious child read thus Pamela, The 
Children of the Abbey, and Clarissa to the sweet-faced, 
white -souled matron. Likewise The Rambler, Rasselas, 
Shakespeare, and The Spectator (unexpurgated). But 
Young's Night Thoughts, Thomson's Seasons, Paradise 
Lost, Pope's Essays, and the Book of Books qualified what- 
ever of evil might have crept into the tender imagination 
from the strong meat, spiced. Cowper was a living presence 
to mother and girl. My mother could repeat pages of 
The Tas^ from memory fift}^ years after she recited them 
to her gentle teacher, and his hymns were the daily food 
of the twain. 

The Olney family drove in the heavy coach over heavy 
roads five miles in all weathers to the First Presbyterian 
Church of Richmond. My grandfather had helped raise 
the money for the building, as his letters show, and was one 
of the elders ordained soon after the church was organized. 

Thither they had gone on Christmas Sunday, 1811, to 
be met on the threshold by the news of the burning of the 
theatre on Saturday night. My mother, although but si.x 
years old, never forgot the scenes of that day. Doctor 
Rice had deviated from the rutted road of the "long prayer " 
constructed by ecclesiastical surveyors along the lines 
of Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication ("A, 
C, T, S") — to talk as man to man with the Ruler of the 
universe of the terrible judgment which had befallen the 
mourning city. He had even alluded to it in his sermon, 
and it was discussed in awe-stricken tones by hngering 

8 



FOREHEARS AND PATRON SAINT 

^roujxs in the aL<lo.s when .sorvice was over. Tlu-n, her 
Hltle hand locked fast in that of her mother, the child was 
guideti along the valley and up the steep hill to the smoking 
ruins, surrounded by a silent crowd, many of them in teai^s. 
In low, impressive accents the mother told the baby what 
had happened there last night, and, as the little creature 
l)egan to sob, letl her on up the street. A f(>w squares 
farther on, my grandfather and a friend who walked with 
him laughed slightly at something they said or saw, and 
my grandnHjther said, sorrowfully: 

"How can you laugh when sixty fellow-creatures lie 
dead over there — all hurried into Eternity without warn- 
ing?" 

I have never i)assed the now-<jld .Monumental Church 
without recalling the incident engraved upon my childish 
mind by my mother's story. 

In the volume of " D. Lacy's Letters" I found, laid care- 
fully between the embrowned leiives for safest keeping, 
several letters from Cajit. Sterling Smith to his "dear 
Judy," and one from her to him, written while she was 
on a visit to .Montrose, her birthplace, with her only son. 
We have such a pretty, pathetic expression of her love 
for husband and child, and touches, few but graphic, that 
outline for us so clearly her personality and environment, 
that I insert it here: 

"Montrose, Sc])tember ruh, 1817. 
" (Ten o'clock nt niglit.) 

''My dear Mr. Smith, — I am sitting by my dear Josiah, who 
continues ill. His fever rises uixuit dark. The chills are less 
severe, and the fever does not hist as long as it did a week 
ago. Still, he suffers much, and is very weak. He has taken 
a great deal of medicine with very little benefit. His gimis 
are sore. The doctor thinks they are touched by the calomel. 
He was here this morning, and advised some oil and then the 
bark. 

"We have been looking for you ever since yesterday. 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Poor fellow! He longs to see you — and so do I! I was up 
last night, and I have been to-night very often — indeed, almost 
constantly — at the door and the window, listening for the 
sound of your horse's feet. I have written by post, by John 
Morton, and by Mr. Mosby. I think if you had received 
either of the notes I should see you to-night, unless something 
serious is the matter. I am so much afraid that you are ill 
as to be quite unhappy. 

"My love to my dear girls and all the family. My dear! 
my heart is sore! Pray that God may support me. I am 
too easily depressed — particularly when you are not with 
me. I Io7ig to see you! I hope I shall before you receive this. 
God bless you! 

"Your very affectionate — your own Judy. 

" (Saturday morning.) 

"We are both better. Josiah's fever is off, but he is very 
weak." 

That the wife should begin the love-full epistle, "My 
dear Mr. Smith," and sign it, "your own Judy," seems the 
queerer to modern readers when it is considered that her 
husband was also her cousin, and had married her niece 
as his first wife. Few wives called their lords by their 
Christian names a hundred years back, and the custom is 
not yet fully established in the Southern States. 

The few lettei*s written by my grandfather that have 
been preserved until now show him to have been a man 
of sincere piety, sterling sense, and affectionate disposi- 
tion. One herewith given betrays what a wealth of ten- 
derness was poured out ujwn his fairy-like wife. It like- 
wise offers a fair sketch of the life of a well-to-do Virginia 
planter of that date. 

His wife was visiting her Montrose relatives. 

"Olney, March SOth, 1814. 
"With inexpressible pleasure I received yours by Mr. Mos- 
by. I rejoice that the expected event with our dear sister 

10 



FOREBEARS AND PATRON SAINT 

has turned out favorably, and that you, my dear, are enjoy- 
ing better health. 

"I hope that you will not be uneasy about my lonely 
situation. Every one mast know that it rannot be agreeable, 
but when I con.sider that you may be benefited by it, and 
even that your health may Ije restored (which we have reason 
to hope for), what would I not forego to secure so great a 
blessing! 

" I have kept close at home, except when I went to meeting 
on Sabbath, and to town to-ilay to hear from you. During 
the day I have Ijeen busy, and at night have enjoyed the 
company of good books until ten or eleven o'clock, then gone 
to bed and slept tolerably well. I eat at the usual times, 
and have as good health as usual. Thus situated, I will try 
to be as comfortable as I can until God shall Ije pleased to 
bring us together again. 

"Some of our black people are still sick. Amy is much 
Ixjtter. and sj)eaks |)lainly. Rose is but poorly, yet no worse. 
Nanny is in appearance no lM?tter. Jiecky has l)een really 
sick, but seems comfortalile this evening. The doctor has 
ordered medicine which will. I hojie. restore her to health, 
Oba was a little while in the garden on Monday, but has l)een 
closely housed ever since. His cough is very bad. and I 
supj)ose him unable to labor. 

"I wish to come for you as soon as possible, and I would, 
if I could, n^join you to-morrow. The election would not 
keep me, but I have business I wish to attend to this week, 
and also to attend the meeting of the Bible Society at the 
Capitol on Tuesday. I hope to see you on Wednesday. I 
wish you to be prepared to come home with me soon after 
that. With regard to Betsy. I don't exjject she will be 
ready to come home with us, and. if she could, I dread riding 
an ill-gaited horse thirty miles. Mr. Mosby's carriage is to 
go to Lynchburg in a few days, and he talks of returning home 
by way of Prince Edward, and bringing the two Betsies home. 
The carriage will be emi)ty. I shall persuade him to be in 
earnest about it. 

"Now, my dear, 1 must conclude with committing you to 

11 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the care of our Heavenly Father. May He keep you from 
every evil! Give my love to the dear family you are with. 
May you be a comfort to them, and an instrument in the 
hands of God to do them good! Kiss my little ones for me, 
and tell them I love them! 

"Your own affectionate, 

"Wm. S. Smith." 

The matter-of-fact manner in which the writer hints at 
the ride of thirty miles upon the ill-gaited horse he would 
have to bestride if the women, babies, and maid filled the 
family chariot, and his intention of making Mr. Mosby 
"earnest" in the scheme of despatching his empty carriage 
to Lynchburg — a distance of one hundred and forty miles 
— returning by way of Prince Edward, eighty miles from 
Olney — to fetch "the two Betsies" home, was a perfectly 
natural proceeding in the eyes of him who wrote and of 
her who read. There was not so much as a stage-coach 
route between the two towns. Heavy as were the car- 
riages that swung and creaked through the red mud-holes 
and corduroy roads that did duty for thoroughfares all 
over the State, they were on the go continually, except 
when the mud-holes became bottomless and the red clay 
as sticky as putty. Then men and women went on horse- 
back, unless the women were too old for the saddle. The 
men never were. 

It was, likewise, an everyday matter with our planter 
that five of his "black people" should be down "sick" at 
one time. The race had then, as they have to our day, 
a penchant for disease. Every plantation had a hospital 
ward that was never empty. 

A letter penned three years earlier than that we have 
just read: 

"We are going on bravely ^vith our subscription for build- 
ing a meeting-house. Yesterday was the first of my turning 

12 



lOKLBE A RS AMj I'AiUUN SAINT 

out with aubseriptioii-paper. I fjot KVi dollars subscribed, 
with Ji j)roinise of more. We have now about 1800 dollars 
oil our subscription-list, which sum increases at least 100 
dollars a day. I lioi>e, witii a little help that we have reason 
to expect from New York, we shall soon be al)le to begin the 
work, which may the bord prosper in our hands!" 

The *' meeting-house," when constructed, was pojiularly 
known as the "Pineapple Church," from the conical orna- 
ment topping the steeple. As Richmond grew westward 
and (limbed up Shockoe Hill, t\w Fii-st Presbyterian 
Church was swept up with tlu; eongicgation to another 
site. The deserted building was l)<)Ught by the Episco- 
palians, and christened "Christ Church." As long as it 
stood it was known by the "()ld-tim(>rs" as th(^ "Old 
Pineapple." 

The daughters of Captain Sterling's first wife were Mary 
and I"]lizabeth (the "Hetsy" of his lettei*s). Sh(^ married 
Hev. Thomas Lumpkin, whom she met on one of her visits to 
Prince Ivlwarti County, where her aunt, Mrs. James Morton, 
lived in the vicinity of IIam|)den Sidney College. Her hiLs- 
bantl lived but seven months from i]w. wedding-day, and 
she returnetl to Olney and the fostering care of her father 
and the second mother, wlio was ever her fast and tender 
friend. There, in the house where she was lx)rn, she laid 
in her stepmother's arms a baby-girl, Ixjrn four months 
later. The posthumous child became the beloved "Cousin 
Mary " of these memoirs. She had l)een the jx'tted darling 
of the homestead five years when her mother married again, 
and another clergyman, whom I shall call "Mr. Carus." 
He was a Connecticut man who had been a tutor in the 
Olney household before he took orders. For reasoiLs which 
will api)ear by -and -by, I prefer to disguise his name. 
Others in his native New England bear it, although he 
left no descendants. 

From my mother I had the particulars of the death-scene 

13 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

in that first-floor "chamber" in the homestead, when, on 
a sultry August day (1820), "the longest, saddest day I 
have ever known" — said the daughter — the dainty, deli- 
cate creatui'e who was soul and heart to the home passed 
away from earth. 

My mother has told me how the scent of white jessamine 
flowed into the room where grief was hushed to hearken 
for the failing breath. 

Dr. Rice's niece leaned over the pillow in which the 
girl of fourteen smothered her sobs in clinging to the 
small hand so strangely cold. 

"She does not breathe!" the weeper heard the friend 
whisper. And in a moment more, "Her heart does not 
beat!" 

I have dwelt at length upon the character and life of 
my maternal grandmother because of my solemn conviction 
that I inherit what humble talent is mine from her. I can- 
not recall the time when everything connected with her 
did not possess for me a sweet and weird charm ; when the 
fancy that this petite woman, with a heart and soul too 
great for her physique, was my guardian angel, did not stay 
my soul and renew my courage in all good emprises. 

Her profiled portrait hangs before me as I write. The 
features are finely chiselled and high-bred ; the expression 
is sweet. She wears a close cap with a lace border (she 
was but fifty-three at death!), and a crimped frill stands 
up about a slender neck. 

My fantasy may be a figment of the imagination, I 
cherish it with a tenacity that tells me it is more. That my 
mother shared it was proved by her legacy to me of all the 
books and other relics of her mother she possessed at the 
time of her own decease, and the richer legacy of tales of 
that mother's life and words, her deeds of mercy and love, 
which cannot but make me a better woman. 

The mortal remains of my patron saint lie in the old 

14 



FOREBEARS AND PATRON SAINT 

family huryinfj-ground. War, in its rudest shape, swept 
over tlic ancestral acres for two years. Trees, centuries 
old, were cut down; ruffian soldiery canijx'd ui)on and 
tramped over desolated fields; outbuildings were destroyed, 
and the cosey home stripped of jjorches and wings, leaving 
it a pitiful shell. Captain Sterling had fought at German- 
town and Monmouth, leading his Henrico troopers in the 
train of Washington and Gates. And Northern cannon 
and Southern nuisketry jarred his bones after their rest of 
half a century in the country graveyard! 

Yet — and this I like to think of — the periwinkle that 
opens its blue eyes in the early springtime, and the long- 
stemmed narcissus, waving its golden cen.sers above the 
tangled grasses, spring from the roots her dear hands buried 
there one hundred years imo. 



n 

LAFAYETTE — REVOLUTIONARY TALES — PARENTS' MARRL\GE 

My father's wooing, carried on, now at Dr. Rice's house 
in town, now at Olney, progressed projiitiously. During the 
engagement, Lafayette visited Richmond. My father was 
a member of the once -famous volunteer company, the 
Richmond Blues, and marched with it when it was de- 
tailed as a body-guard for the illustrious guest of the 
nation. My mother walked at the head of her class of 
Sunday-school children in the procession of women and 
girls mustered here to do him honor, as was done in 
Trenton and other towns. She kept among her treasured 
relics the blue-satin badge, with Lafayette's likeness stamped 
on it in silver, which she wore upon her left shoulder. The 
Blues were arrayed in Continental uniform, with powdered 
hair. So completely was my father metamorphosed by 
the costume that, when, at the close of the parade, he pre- 
sented liimself in Dr. Rice's drawing-room to pay his de- 
voirs to his fiancee, she did not recognize him until he 
spoke. 

I have heard the particulars of that day's pageant and 
of Lafayette's behavior at the public reception awarded 
him by a grateful people, so often that I seem to have 
been part of the scene in a former incarnation. So vivid 
were my reminiscences that, when a bride and a guest at 
Redhill, the former home of Patrick Henry, I exchanged 
incidents and sayings with the great orator's son, Mr. John 
Henry, who had been on the Committee of Reception in 

16 



LAFAYETTE 

1824. In tho cnthusijusni of liis own recollections of the 
fete he inquired, naively : 

"Do yovi, then, renieniber Lafayette's visit to ^Vinerica 
«. well?" 

The general hurst of merriment that went around the 
table, and ^\'irt Henry's respectful, half-distressed — ''Why, 
father! she wasn't lx)rn!" brouij;ht botli of us back to tlie 
actual and present time and place. 

A large platform erected upon the Capitol Square wa.s 
lilled with distinguished guests ami officials. From this 
Lafa}'ette reviewed the regiments of soldiei^s, and here he 
stood when the schools of the city sent up as their rei)re- 
sentative a pretty little girl, eight or ten years of age, to 
"speak a piece" written for the occasion by a local bard. 
The midget went through the tiisk bravely, but with filling 
eyes and trembling limbs. Iler store of factitious courage 
exhaled with the last line reeled off from the red hps, and, 
with a scared, j)iteous look into the benign face brought 
upon a level with hers by the table U|)on which she had 
been set, like an animated puppet, she cast herself upon 
the great man's decoratcnl breast and wept sore. He 
kissed and cuddled and soothed her as he might pet his 
own grandchild, and not until she could return his smile, 
and he had dried her tears u|X)U his laced handkerchief, 
did he transfer her to other amis. 

^hijor James Morton, of " W'ilHngton," Prince Edward 
County, who married my grandmother's sister Mary, 
of Montrose, had served under Lafayette and came down 
to Richmond to do honor to his former chief. The Major's 
sobriquet in the army was "Solid Column," in n^ference to 
his "stocky" build. Although hi> had been on Washing- 
ton's staff, he did not expect to be recognized, after the 
lapse of thirty years and more, by the renowned French- 
man, who had i>assed since their parting through a bloodier 
revolution than that which won freedom for America. 

17 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

General Lafayette was standing at the head of the ball- 
room (which was, I think, in the Eagle Hotel), where he 
received the crowds of citizens and military flocking to 
pay their respects, when he espied his whilom comrade 
on the outskirts of the throng. Instantly stepping out- 
side of the cordon of aids and attendants, the Marquis 
held out both hands with: 

"Vy, old Soleed Colwwme! I am 'appy to see you!" 

A marvellous memory and a more marvellous facile 
tongue and quick wit had the distinguished leader of free- 
dom-lovers! There lived in Richmond, imtil the latter 
quarter of the nineteenth century, a stately gentlewoman 
of the very old school whom we, of two younger generations, 
regarded with prideful veneration, and with reason. For 
Lafayette, who had seen her dance at the aforesaid ball, 
had pronounced her, audibly, " the handsomest woman he 
had seen in America." Time had handled her disrespect- 
fully by the time I heard the tale. But I never questioned 
the truth of it until I found in three other cities as many 
antique belles upon whom he had set a seal of the self -same 
pattern. 

We were generously fed with authentic stories of Revo- 
lutionary days in my far-off childhood. I have sat at 
Major Morton's feet and learned of the veteran much that 
nobody else wots of in our rushing times. I recall his em- 
phatic denial of the assertion made by a Fourth-of-July 
orator to the effect that so grievous was the weight of public 
cares upon the Commander-in-Chief, he was never seen to 
smile during those eventful eight years of struggle and 
suspense. 

"Not a word of truth in it, sir!" Thus old Solid Column 
to the man who reported the speech to him. "I was with 
him at Valley Forge, sir, and nobody there tried harder to 
keep up the spirits of the men. I recollect, particularly, one 
bitter cold day, when a dozen or so of the officers were 

18 



Ki:\()LL TIONARV TAJ.ES 

amusing thcinsclvcs and trying to <:;('t warm hy juiupinj; 
u|) aiul down, k'ai>in<^ high u\) in the air and trying to clap 
tlicir heels together twice before they struck the ground 
in coming down. Gcncml Greene was sure he could do it, 
but he wa,s jleshy and never light on his feet, besides being 
naturally sober. H(> was a Quaker, you know, and was 
turned out of meeting for joining th(» army. Well, on this 
l)articular day he t(xjk his turn with the others in jumping. 
And a |)oor hand he was at it! He couldn't clap his heels 
together once on tlic way down, let alone twice, By-and-by 
he made a tremendous etVort and pitched over, head down 
and heels up — fiat on the snow. (Jeneral Washington 
was watching tiiciii from where he stood in liis tent door, 
and when (Jeneral Greene went down — iiow the General 
laughed! lie fairly held his sides! 

'"Ah, Greene!' he called out. 'Vou were always a lub- 
berly fellow!' 

"I am not saying he wasn't one of the gravest men I 
ever saw, as a rule, but he often smiled, and he did laugh 
sometimes." 

My grandfather's uncle and godfather, Sterling Smith, 
was one of our family Revolutionary heroes. My mother, 
wiio had a fair talent for mimicry, had an anecdote of the 
okl war-horse's tlefence of Washington against the oft- 
repeated charge of profanity uj)on the field of Monmouth: 

*"He did not swear!' the veteran would thunder when 
irreverent youngstei-s retailed the slander in his healing — 
and with malice prei)en.se. *I was close behind him — and 
I can tell you, sir, we rode/«.s7 — when what should we meet, 
rumiing away, licketty-si)lit, from the field of battle, with 
the British almost on their heels, but Gen'ral Lee and his 
men ? 

'"Then, with that, says Gen'ral Washington, speaking 
out loud and sharj) — says he. "Gen'ral L(>e! in God's name, 
sir, what is the meaning of this ill-timed prudence?" 
3 19 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

'' ' Now, you see, Gen'ral Lee, he was mighty high-sperrited 
always, and all of us could hear what was going on. So 
he speaks up as haughty as the Gen'ral had done, and 
says he: 

" * " I know of no one who has more of that most damn- 
able \drtue than your Excellency!" 

" ' So, you see, 3^0 ung man, it was Gen'ral Lee that swore, 
and not Gen'ral Washington! Don't you ever let me hear 
that lie again!' " 

A Revolutionary reminiscence of my mother's (or mine) 
is always renewed by the sight of an Old Virginia planta- 
tion-gate, swinging gratingly on ponderous hinges and kept 
shut by the fall of a wooden latch, two yards long, into a 
wooden hook set in the gate-post. This latch is usually 
nearly half-way down the gate, and a horseman approach- 
ing it from the outside must dismount to lift the heavy 
bar, or be practised in the trick of throwing himself well 
over the top-rail to reach the latch and hold it, while he 
guides his horse through the narrow opening. 

My grandfather, "Captain Sterling," was at the head of 
a foraging - party near Yorktown when they were chased 
by British troopers. The Americans scattered in various 
directions and escaped for the most part, being familiar 
with the country by-ways and cross-roads. Their captain 
was closely pursued by three troopers to a high plantation- 
gate. The Virginian opened it, without leaving the saddle, 
shot through, shut the gate, and rammed down the latch 
into the socket hard. The pursuers had to alight to raise 
the latch, and the delay gave the fugitive time to get 
away. 

My parents were married at Olney, in Henrico County, 
January 25, 1825. 

The bride — not yet nineteen years of age — wore a soft, 
sheer India muslin, a veil falling to the hem of thd gown, 
and white brocade slippers embroidered with faint blue 

20 



PARENTS' MARRIAGE 

(lowers. The bridegroom's siiit was of fine blue cloth, with 
real silver butt<jns. Ilis feet were clad in white-silk stock- 
ini];s an<l low shoes — "pumps" as they were called — with 
wrouf^ht-silver buckles. Tlio.se shoes and buckles were long 
j)re.served in the family. I do not know what befell them 
linally. The ceremony was jx^rformed l)y the brother-in- 
law whom I have called, for the sake of convenience, the 
Reverend Mr. Carus. 

The girl had laughingly tlireatened that she would not 
promise to "olj<'y," and that a .scene would follow the use 
of the obnoxious word in the marriage service. The young 
divine, witli this in mind, or in a fit of ab.sent-mindedness 
or of stage-fright, actually blundered out, " Ix)ve, honor — 
and obey, in all thimj.s ronsislenl !" 

As may be imagined, the interpolation produced a lively 
sensation in the well-mannered company thronging the 
homestead, and took rank as a family legend. How many 
times I have heard my mother quote the saving claase in 
playful monition to my masterful father! 

The bride's jiortion, on leaving home for the house her 
father had furnished for her in town, was ten thousand 
dollars in .stocks and bonds, and two family servants — a 
husband and wife. 

The following summer the wedded i)air visited the hus- 
band's mother in Roxbury, Mas.sachusctts. The journey 
from Richmond to New ^'ork was by a packet-ship, and 
lasted for two weeks. My jKjor little mother was horribly 
seasick for a week each way. To her latest day she could not 
hear of "Point Judith" without a (pialm. She said that, 
for a time, the a.ssociation "di.sgusted her with her own 
name." The mother-in-law, hale and handsome at forty- 
five, had married, less than a year before, Deacon John 
Clapp, a well-to-do and excellent citizen of Roxbury, and 
installed the buxom, "caj)able" widow, whose father was 
now tU'ad, as the mother of foiii- children by a former 

21 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

marriage, and as mistress of a comfortable home. She 
had not come to him portionless. The sturdy "Squire," 
mindful of her filial devotion to him in his declining years, 
had left her an equal share of his estate with her sisters. 
The brother, Lewis Pierce, had succeeded to the home- 
stead. 

Mrs. Clapp appeared in the door of her pretty house, 
radiant in her best black silk and cap of fine lace (she never 
wore any other), her husband at her side, the little girls 
and the boy in the background, as the stage bringing her 
son and new daughter from Boston stopped at the gate. 

At their nearer approach she uttered an exclamation, 
flung up her hands before her eyes, and ran back into the 
house for the "good cry" the calmest matron of the day 
considered obligatory upon her when state family occasions 
demanded a show of "proper feeling." 

The worthy Deacon saved the situation from embarrass- 
ment by the heartiness of his welcome to the pair, neither 
of whom he had ever met before. 

The second incident linked in my mind with the im- 
portant visit is of a more serious complexion, I note it 
upon Memory's tablets as the solitary exhibition of aught 
approaching jealousy I ever saw in the wife, who knew 
that her lover-husband's heart was all her own, then and as 
long as it beat. I give the story in her own words : 

"A Miss Topliffe and her mother were invited to take 
tea with us one evening. I had gathered from sundry 
hints — and eloquent sighs — from your grandmother that 
she had set her heart upon a match between her son and 
this young lady. She even went to the length of advising 
me to pay particular attention to my dress on this even- 
ing. ' Miss Topliffe was very dressy ! ' I found this to be 
true. She was also an airy personage, talkative to your 
father, and supercilioiLs to me. A few days afterward we 
were asked to tea at the Topliffes. I had a wretched even- 

22 



PARENTS' MARRIAGE 

\w^\ Miss Topliffo was rather handsome aiul very Hvely, 
aiul she was in liigh feather that night, directing most of 
her convei'sation, a.s before, to my husband. She played 
upon the piano, and sang love-songs, and altogether made 
hei-self the attraction of the occasion. I felt small and in- 
significant and dull beside her, and I could see that she 
amased your father so much that he did not see how I 
was jiushed into the background. 

"I said never a word of all this to him, still less to my 
mother-in-law, when she told me, next day, that 'every 
one of his friends had hoped my son would marry Miss 
TopIilTe. The match would have been very agreeable to 
both families. Hut it seems that it was not to be. The 
ways of Providence are past finding out!' 

"Then she sighed, just {is she might have mourned over 
a bereavement in the family. I have hated that girl ever 
since!" 

"Hut, mother." I essayed, consolingly, "you knew he 
loved you best all the time!" 

"Of course, child, but she didn't! There was the rub!" 

I can respond now. It always is the bitter drop at the 
lK)ttom of the cu|) held to the lips of the wife who can- 
not resent her lord's innocent flirtation witli "that other 
woman." She knows, and he is serenely conscious of his 
unshaken loyalty, but the other woman has her own be- 
liefs and hugs them. 

In May, 182(), my brother William Edwin wa,s lK)rn in 
tlu! cosily home on the slope of Church lliil overlooking 
the " Pineapjile Church." More than forty years afterwartl, 
in the last drive I had with my mother, she leaned forward 
in th(» carriage to point out the neat three-story brick 
dwelling, now in the heart of the business section of the 
city: 

"That was the house in which I spent the fii'st three 
yeai's of my married life!" 

23 



MARION HARLAND'S A UTOlil OGRAFH Y 

Then, dreamily and softly, she related what was the 
peaceful tenor of those first years. Her father was alive, 
and she saw him often; her sister, "Aunt Betsy," and her 
children kept the old home-nest wami for him ; the young 
couple had hosts of friends in town and countr}^, and both 
were as deeply interested, as of yore, in church-work. 

Edwin was two years old when a single bolt from the 
blue changed life for her. 

My father's partner was a personal and trusted friend 
before they went into business together. They had kept 
bachelor's hall in partnership up to the marriage of the 
junior member of the firm. It transpired subsequently 
that the senior, who was the financial manager of the con- 
cern, had "cooked" accounts and made up false exhib- 
its of the status of the house to coax the confiding com- 
rade to join his fortunes with his. The tale is old and as 
common to-day as when my father discovered that his own 
savings and my mother's wedding - portion would be 
swallowed up in the payment of his partner's debts. 

It was dark and bitter weather that swept down u|)on 
the peaceful home and blighted the ambitions of the rising 
young merchant. 

The man who had brought about the reverse of fortune 
"took to drink." That was likewise as common then as 
now. My father paid his debts, wound up the business 
honestly, and braced himself to begin the w6rld anew. 

In his chagrin at the overthrow of plans and hopes, *he 
somewhat rashly accepted the proposal that the fresh be- 
ginning should be in the countr3\ Richmond was full 
of disagreeable associations, and country merchants were 
making money. 

Country " storekeeping " was then as honorable as the 
calling of a city merchant. In fact, many town-houses had 
rural branches. It was not unusual for a city man to set 
up his son in one of these, thus controlling the trade of a 

24 



TA ill-: NTS' .MARIIIA(JE 

lar<2;or torritorv than a sin<i;l(' houso could command. Thoro 
wcri! no railways in \'ii->;inia. .Merchandise was carried all 
■over the state in bi^, covered wagons, known in Penn- 
sylvania as "Conesto^'as." I^onj:;- Ixxlied, with hooped 
awnings of sail-cloth Ijxshed over tlu^ ark-liko interior to 
k(>e|) out dust and rain, anil drawn by six powerful draught- 
hoi-ses, the leadei's wearin<^ sprays of l>ells, they were a 
picturesque feature of country roads. Fortunes were 
amassed by the owners of wagon-lines, the great arks keep- 
ing the road winter and sununer, and well laden lx)th ways. 
Plantei's had their teams and wagons for hauling tobacco 
and other crops to town, and bringing back stores of grocer- 
ies and dr\'-goods at stated periods in the spring and au- 
tumn; but between times they were glad to avail them- 
selves of the caravans for transjX)rtation of butter, eggs, 
poultry, potatoe.s, dried fruits, yarn, cotton, and other 
domestic j)roducts to the city, to be sold or bartered for ar- 
ticles they could not raise. 

In such a wheeled l)oat the furniture and j)ersonal be- 
longings of our small family were transjwrted from Rich- 
mond to Dcnnisville, Amelia County, a journey of two 
dreary days. 

Husband, wife, and baby travelled in their own ba- 
rouche, my father acting as coachman. Sam and Milly, 
the coloi'ed s(>rvants, had preceded them by two da3's, 
taking passage in the Conestoga. One November after- 
noon, the carriage drew uji at the future home of the three 
passengei-s. The dwelling adjoined the store — a circum- 
stance that shocked the city woman. The joint structure 
was of wood, mean in dimensions and inconvenient in plan. 
Dead leaves were heaped about the steps. As Baby Edwin 
was liftetl from the carriage to the ground, he stood knee- 
d«>ep in the rustling leaves, and began to cry with the cold 
and the strangeness of it all. Not a cai'i^et was down, and 
the efforts of the faithful servants to make two rooms honie- 

25 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

like for "Miss Jud' Anna" increased the forlornness of the 
situation by reminding her of the habitation and friends 
she had left behind. 

It was a comfortless winter and spring. I fancy it was 
as delightless to the husband as to the wife — just turning 
her twenty-first year, and learning for the first time in her 
sheltered life the taste of privation. She loved her church, 
her father and her sister and dear old Olney — unchanged 
while she dwelt so far apart from them and it and home- 
comforts; she was fond of society, and in Richmond she 
had her merry circle close at hand. In Dennisville she had, 
literally, no neighbors, and without th3 walls of her house 
no palliatives of homesickness. The cottage was small ; 
her servants were trained, diligent, and solicitous to spare 
her toil and inconvenience; her husband and her distant 
friends kept her supplied with books, and as the period of 
her second confinement drew near she yielded more and 
more to natural lassitude, spent the summer days upon 
the sofa or in bed, reading, and rarely left the house on 
foot. 

In direct consequence, as she ever afterward maintained, 
of this indolent mode of life, she went down to the gate of 
death when her first daughter, Ann Almeria (named for 
two grandmothers), was born in June. 

Providentially, an able specialist from another county 
was visiting a friend upon a neighboring plantation, and 
the local practitioner, at his wits' end, chanced to think of 
him. A messenger was sent for him in hot haste, and he 
saved the life of mother and child. The baby was puny 
and delicate, and was a source of anxiety throughout her 
childhood. 



Ill 



A COUNTRY EXILE — DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN — CHANGE 
OF HOME — A FIRESIDE TRAGEDY — "COGITO, ERGO 
SUM." 

I, the third cliilil Ixim to my parents, was hut a few 
months old when my Httle l)rothor was taken by my father 
to Roxbury and left then.' with his gran(!mother. 

Tliis singular and i)ainful episode in our family history 
illustrates more clearly than could any mere description, 
th(> mode of thought and action prevalent at that date 
respecting the training and education of children. 

Our parents lived in an obscure country village, a mere 
hamlet, destitute of school and social privileges. The few 
families who, with them, made up the population of the 
hamlet were their inferiors in breeding and education; 
their children were a lawless, ill-mannered set, and the 
only school near them was what was known as "an old 
fi(>ld school" ui)on the outskirts of a i)lantation three miles 
away. Little Edwin, a bright, intelligent laddie, was 
taught to read and writc^ by bis mother b(>fore he was five. 
He loved lx)oks; but he was restless for the lack of play- 
fellows of his own age. His father was bent upon giving 
him all the learning that could be cmmmed into one small 
h(^ad, and cast al:Kiut for opportunities of cariying out the 
design. The grandmother begged to have one of the 
children for a long visit; schooling of an advanced type 
was to be had within a stone's-throw of her door, and the 
boy, if intrusted to her, would have a mother's care. My 

27 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

father urged the measure upon his weaker-willed wife. She 
opposed it less and less strenuously until the boy came in 
from the street one day with an oath in his mouth he had 
learned from one of the Dennisville boys. 

"That night, upon my knees, and with a breaking heart, 
I consented to let him go North," the mother told me, 
falteringly. when I was a woman grown. 

The father hm-ried him off within the week — I imagine 
lest she might change her mind — and remained in Rox- 
bury three weeks with him to accustom him to his new 
abode. His letters written during this absence are cheer- 
ful — I am disposed to say, "obstinately optimistic." I 
detect, too, a touch of diplomacy in the remarks dropped 
here and there, as to his mortification at finding Edwin 
so "backward in his education by comparison with other 
children of his age," and the bright prospects opening for 
his future in the "excellent school of which everybody 
speaks highly." 

The day before his father left him, Edwin accompanied 
him to Boston, and books were bought for his sister, with 
a pretty gift for his mother. He had grown quite fond 
of his grandmother, so the father reported when he arrived 
^t home, and the kind-hearted "Deacon was as good as 
another boy." 

Letters came with gratifying regularity — fortnightly — 
from Roxbury. The boy was going to school and making 
amends for his "backwardness" by diligence and pro- 
ficiency. I have laid away in om' family Bible quaintly 
worded "Rewards of Merit" — printed forms upon paper 
which crackles under the fingers that unfold it — testifying to 
perfect recitations and good behavior. The boy's name 
and the testimonials are filled in by his woman teacher in 
legible, ladylike script. The fortnightly epistles told of the 
child's health and "nice" behavior. I fancy that more 
stress was laid upon the last item by his grandmother than 

28 



DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN 

u|X)n tlie fii*st. My father oxj)ressed himself as satisfied 
wiLli the result of the cxperiineiit. The mother mourned 
secretly for the merry voice and lx)nny face of her darling. 
At th(! entl of three months the lunging leaj)ed tlie lx)unds 
of wifely submission, and she won from her ha>^band the 
admission that home was not home without his \yoy. 
They would go in company to Roxbury next summer and 
Ijring him back with them. If he were to be sent from 
home to school, they would commit him to the Olney or 
Richmond kinspeople. Roxbury was a cruel distance from 
central \'irginia. 

A month later two letters were brought to my father's 
couiiting-room with the Richmond mail. One told of Ed- 
win's dangerous illness, the second of his death and burial. 
His malady — brain -fever — was set down by the grand- 
mother to "the visitation of CJod." In view of his ra|)id 
progress in learning, and the strict discipline of the hoase- 
liold in which he studied the le.«<sons to be recited on the 
mornjw, and without a blunder, we may hold a different 
oi)inion, and one that exonerates the Deity of direct in- 
terference in the work. 

Be this as it may, the precious five-year-old hatl died so 
far from his mother's arms that, had she set out immediate- 
ly ui)on receipt of the news of his illness, a month would 
have elapsed between the tlepailure of the letter from 
RoxbiHX' and her arrival there, if she had travelled day 
and niglit. His earthly education was finished. 

The stricken father, staring at th(» brace of fatal letters — 
couched, you may be sure, in duly pietistic |)hrase and inter- 
larded with Scripture texts — had the terrible task of break- 
ing the news to the motlier whose ha})j)y dream and talk 
were all of "when we go North for our lx)y." 

H(> carried the lettei-s home. His wife was not in "the 
chainl)er," where a colored nurse — another family servant 
— was in charge of the two little girls. Hearing her foot- 

29 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

steps approaching presently, the strong man's heart failed 
him suddenly. He retreated behind the open door, act- 
ually afraid to face the gentle woman to whom his will 
was law. 

Suspecting a practical joke, my light-hearted mother 
pulled back the door, the knob of which he had clutched 
in his desperate misery, saw his face and the letters in his 
hand, and fell in a dead faint at his feet. 

In the summer of 1863 I visited the little grave with my 
husband. Civil War raged like a sea of blood between 
North and South. The parents had not seen Edwin's last 
resting-place in several years. I knew the way to the 
secluded corner of the old Dorchester Cemetery where, 
beside the kind old step-grandfather who loved the boy 
while living, lies the first-born of our Virginia home. The 
stone is inscribed with his name and the names of his 
parents, the dates of his birth and death, and below these: 

"Our trust is in the Lord." 

None of our friends in Roxbury and Dorchester knew so 
much as the child's name. The headstone loaned one way, 
the footstone another, and a desolate hollow, telling of 
total neglect, lay between. Yet right above the heart of 
the forgotten boy was a tumbler of white flowers, still 
fresh. By whom left we never knew, although we made 
many inquiries. Dr. Terhune had the grave remounded 
and turfed, the stones cleaned and set upright, and at 
the second visit that assured us this was done, we covered 
the grave with flowers. 

In my next " flag-of-truce " letter, I wrote to let his 
mother know what we had seen and done, and of the 
bunch of white flowers left by the nameless friend. 

Our grandmother treasured and sent home to his mother, 
after a while, the child's clothing and every toy and book 
that had been his, even a hard cracker bearing the im- 

30 



CHAXCIE OF HOME 

print of the tiny teeth he was too weak to set firmly in 
the biscuit. 

Tiie |)reservation of the odd voVic was the only touch of 
poetry I ever discerned in the granite nature of my father's 
incjthcr. 

With liiin tlie sorrow for his hoy lasted with his life. 
Thirty yeai-s afterward I heard Edwin's name from his lips 
for the first time. 

"No other child has ever been to me what he was!" he 
.said. "And the pain is as keen now as it was then." 

Then he arose and began pacing the room, as was his 
habit when strongly moved, hands behind his back, head 
depressed, and lips closely foldetl. 

He loved the child so passing well that he could sacri- 
fice his own joy in his comijanionshij) to what he believed 
to be the child's Ix'tter good. 

After tills bereavement the Dennisville life became in- 
supportably sad. I think it was more in con.se<iui'nce of 
this than for pecuniary i)ro(it that my fallici-, the next 
year, removed his family to Lunenburg. 

My mother could never si)(nik of her residence in Ame- 
lia County without a i)ale shud<ler. Yet that it was not 
wasted time, I have evidences from other sources. 

Part of a letter written to her at Olney in the early 
sjiring succeeding the removal to Dennisville shows with 
what cheerful couragi' my father set alwut church and 
neighborhood work. Ne.xt to his home and the loved ones 
gathered there, the church of which he was a loyal son 
had his best energies and warmest thought. 

"You cannot imagine how solitary I am. I could not have 
thought that the absence of my dear wife and chikl would 
create so ijreat a vacuum in my life. I do not wish to hasten 
your return from your friends, but you may rest a.s.sured that 
I shall he heartily glad when you come home. I got home on 
Sunday morning, and found Mr. White here in quiet possession 

31 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of the house. His wife did not come with him on account of 
the bad roads. 

"He gave us for a text John xv : 25: — 'They hated me with- 
out a cause.' 

"The congregation was nearly, if not quite, as large as 
when he preached the first time, and very attentive. Many 
express a wish to hear him again. He gave notice that 
he would on the third Sunday in March preach, and also men- 
tioned that an effort would be made to establish a Sabbath- 
school and Bible-class. It is really encouraging to see how 
readily many of the people fall into the measure, vdthout go- 
ing from home, too. Fathers have gi^'en their names to me, 
wishing to send their children, and several others I have heard 
of who appear anxious to embrace the opportunity. Doctor 
Shore and Mr. White dined with me yesterday, and quite un- 
expectedly I had the pleasure of Doctor Shore, Mr. Bland, and 
Mr. Lancaster at dinner with me to-day. So you see that I now 
get the society of all the good folks while you are away. But 
do not be jealous, for Doctors, had not heard of your absence, 
and apologized for Mrs. Shore and Mrs. Hardy not calling on 
you, saying that he considered it as his and their duty so 
to do, and the}' would not be so remiss for the future. You 
cannot imagine what a rain we have had for the last twelve 
hours, accompanied with thunder and lightning. All the 
creeks about us are impassable, so that we live, I may say, 
in a corner with but one way to get out without swimming, 
and that is to go to Prince Edward. We can get there when 
we can go nowhere else. I have got a hen-house full of eggs, 
and have been working right hard to-day to make the hens 
and an old Muscovy set on them, but they are obstinate 
things, and will have their own way, so I have given it up as 
a bad job. Don't forget to ask Mr. Carus for some of the big 
pumpkin seed. By-the-by, Mrs. Branch had found out be- 
fore I returned who I was, where I lived, what I did, and, in 
fact, knew almost as much about me as I did myself. These 
wagoners are great telltales! To-morrow I pen a pig for you. 
The calves and cows are in good order. I will try to have 
some fresh butter for you. Bose is in excellent health, and the 

32 



A FIR MSI \)K TRAGKDV 

rats are as plentiful ;us ever. You must kiss our little one 
for nic, and take thousands for j-ourself. I again rei)eat that 
time hangs heavy on my hands when you are away, but I 
would not be so selfish as to debar you the pleasure of a few 
(lavs' societv with those who are dear to us both." 



The "Mr. White" mentioned in this letter became an 
eminent elerjxyman as Rev. William Sjiotswood White, 
D.n. Tlie services described here were held in a private 
house in Dennisville, for the nearest place of regular wor- 
ship was some miles away in Nottoway County. In this 
church my father was ordained an elder. He was, also. 
sui)erintendent of the Sunday-school established through 
his personal infhKMice. The pupils and teachers were col- 
lected from the surrounding |)lantations, and the new- 
comer to the sleepy neighlnjrhood mad(.' life-long friends 
witii the "best people" of the region. 

(^uite unconsciously, he gives us, in this resume of ever}'- 
day hapj)enings, glimpses into a life at once primitive and 
refined. The roads are all afloat, but three men draw rein 
at his door on one day, and dine with him while his wife 
is away — "an unexj)ected pleasure." lie busies himself 
with chickens, eggs, and pigs, cows and calves, reports the 
health of the hoib:e-<iog, the promise of Sabbath-school and 
church, and runs the only store in that part of the county 
successfully. And this was the fii*st experience of country 
life for the city-bred man and merchant! 

The Lunenburg home was not even a " ville." A house 
that had bi'cn a rural inn, and, across the road, a hundred 
yards down its irregular length, "the store," formed, \nth 
the usual outbuildings, the small settlement three days 
distant from Richmond. My father and mother boarded 
for a few months with Captain and Mrs. Bragg, who livTd 
in the whilom "Hoase of Entertainment" on the roadside. 

I was but two years old when there occurred a calamity, 

33 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the particulars of which I have heard so often that I seem 
to recollect them for myself: 

One cold winter day my mother left her little daughters 
with their toys at the end of the large bedroom most re- 
mote from a roaring wood-fire ; told them not to go nearer 
to it, and took her work down to Mrs. Bragg's chamber. 
The gentle hostess had a baby but a w^eek old, and her 
boarder's call was one of neighborly kindness. On the 
stairs she met Lucy Bragg, a child about my sister's age — 
five — a pretty, merry baby, and our only playfellow. My 
mother's discipline was never harsh. It was ever effectual, 
for we seldom disobeyed her. She stopped Lucy on the 
stairs to warn her not to play near the fire. 

We played hai)pily together for an hour or two, before 
Lucy complained of being cold and went up to the fire- 
place ; stood there for a moment, her back to the fire and 
hands behind her, prattling with the children at the other 
end of the room. Suddenly she screamed and darted past 
us, her clothing on fire. 

My mother heard the shrieks from the distant "chamber" 
on the ground floor, and, without arousing the sleeping 
patient, slipped noiselessly from the room and ran with all 
her might toward the stairs. Half-way up she met a child 
wrapped in flames, which she was beating with her poor 
little hands while she shrieked for help. My mother flashed 
by her, escaping harm on the narrow stairway as by a 
miracle. One glance into her own room showed her that 
her girls were safe; she tore a blanket from the bed and was 
back so quickly that she overtook the burning figure on 
the lowermost stair, and wrapped her in the blanket. 
Captain Bragg appeared below at the same instant, wound 
the cover about the frantic, struggling creatm-e, and ex- 
tinguished the fire. 

Little Lucy died that night. Her mother and the baby 
followed her to the grave in a week. 

34 



"COGITO, ERGO SUM" 

Tlic tragedy broke up the Bragg household, and we 
fcniiid a temporary home in the family of Mr. Andrew 
MeQuie (pronounced "iMcWay"), two miles from the store. 
The McC^uies were prosperous planters, and the intimacy 
lu'gun that winter continued as long as the older mem- 
bers of the clan lived. We girls learned to call her "(iraml- 
ma," and never remitted the title and the affection that 
prompted it. 

Our ai)artments were in the "Office," a detached brick 
building in the corner of the house-yard — a common ap- 
jjendage to most i)lantation-homesteads. At some period 
of the family history a father or son of the house had prac- 
tised law or medicine, and used the "office" in that capac- 
ity. It never lost the name. 

And here, on a windy wintry evening, I awoke to the 
consciousness of my Individuality. 

I do not know how better to express the earliest memory 
I have of being — and thinking. It was a living demon- 
stration of the great truth shallow thinkers never com- 
prehend — "Cogito, ergo sum." 

I had fallen asleep, tired with play, and lulled into 
drowsiness by the falling rain outside. I lay among the 
l)illows of the trundle-bed at the back of the room, and, 
awakening with a cry of fright at finding myself, as I 
thought, alone, was answered by my mother's voice. 

She sat by the fire in a low rocking-chair, and, guided 
by her reassuring tone, I tumbled out of bed and ran tow- 
ard her. In the area lighted by the burning kjgs, I saw 
her, as in another sphere. To this hour I recall the im- 
pression that she was thinking of something besides my- 
self. Baby as I was, I felt vaguely that she was not "all 
there," even when she took me upon her lap. When she 
said, kindly and in her own sweet way, " Did my little girl 
think her mother had left her alone in the dark?" she did 
not witlidraw her eyes from the ruddy (ire. 

4 35 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Something warned me not to speak again. I leaned my 
head against her shoulder, and we studied the fire together. 
Did the intensity of her musing stir my dormant soul into 
Ufe? I cannot say. Only that I date my conscious per- 
sonal existence from that mystic hour. The picture is 
before me to-night, as I hear my daughter singing her boy 
to sleep in the next room, and the lake- wind rattles the 
vines about my window. The sough of the heated air 
over the brands and embers ; the slow motion of the rocker 
as we swayed to and fro; my mother's thoughtful silence, 
and my small self, awed into speechlessness by the new 
thing that had come to me; my pulpy brain interfused 
with the knowledge that I was a thinking entity, and 
imable to grapple with the revelation — all this is as dis- 
tinct as things of yesternight. 

I have heard but one experience that resembled this 
supreme moment of my infancy. My best-beloved tutor 
related to me when I was twelve years old that he "recol- 
lected when he began to think." The sensation, he said, 
was as if he were talking to himself and could not stop. 
I had that day heard the epigrammatic "Cogito, ergo mm,'' 
and I told of my awakening from a mere animal to spiritual 
and intellectual life. 

I do not com[)rehend the mystery better now than on 
that never-to-be-forgotten evening. I but know that the 
miracle was! 



IV 



A BERSERKER RA<iH— A FRIGHT — THE WESTERN FEVER — 
MONTROSE — A MC/THER REGAINED 

Up to this point of my story, what I have written is 
heai*say. With tiie awakening recorded in the last chapter, 
my real reminiscences begin. 

Tli(^ next vivid im|)ression upon my phistic memory has 
its setting in the -McQuie yard. My mother hail been to 
Richmond on a visit and brought back, as a present from 
a woman who was said to be "good," a doll for my sister. 
Perhaj)S she considered me too young to be intrusted with 
the keeping of the rare creation of wax and real hair. Per- 
liaj^s she did not recollect my existence. In either case, as 
1 promptly settled within mvself. she was not the good 
woman of my mother's j)ainting. 

Not that I had ev(>r cared for "dead dolls." When I 
could just put the wish into words, my craving was for 
a "real, live, xkin baby that could laugh and talk." But 
this specimen was so nearly alive that it opened its eyes 
when one jnilled a wire concealed by the satin petticoat, 
and shut them at another tweak. Moreover, the (alleged) 
good woman in the beautiful city I heard as much of as 
of heaven, had sent my sister the gift, and none to me. 
Furthermore, and woi-st of all, my sister paraded the gift 
before my angry, miserable eyes, and, out of my mother's 
hearing, taunted me with the evident fact that "nobody 
cared for a little girl whose hands were dirty and whose 
hair was never smooth." I was barely three years old. 

37 



MARION HARLAND'8 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

My sister was a prodigy of learning in the estimation of 
our acquaintances, and nearer six than five. I took in 
the case with extraordinary clearness of judgment and 
soreness of heart, and meditated revenge. 

Watching an opportunity when mother, nurse, and sister 
were out of the way, I stole into the office-cottage, pos- 
sessed myself of the hated puppet, who had been put into 
my bed for an afternoon nap — lying there for all the world 
like "a sure-enough baby," with her eyes fast shut — and 
bore her off behind the house. There I stripped off her gay 
attire ; twisted a string about her neck ; contrived — nobody 
could ever tell how — to fasten one end of the cord to the 
lowest bough of a peach-tree, armed myself with a stout 
switch, and lashed every grain of sawdust out of the 
dangling effigy. 

I recollect that my sister, rushing to the scene of action, 
dared not approach the fury into which I had been trans- 
formed, but stood aloof, screaming and wringing her hands. 
I have no recollection of my mother's interference, or of 
the chastisement which, I have been told, was inflicted with 
the self-same rod that had mangled the detested doll into 
a shapeless rag. In my berserker rage I probably did not 
hear scolding or feel stripes. 

My father rented the house vacated by the Braggs, find- 
ing the daily ride to and from the store too long in the 
short winter days. Soon after our return to our old quar- 
ters, another boy was born to the bereaved parents — my 
brother Herbert. He was but a few days old when "Grand- 
ma" McQuie and her two daughters called to inquire after 
mother and child, and carried me off with them, I suppose 
to get me out of the way of nurse and mother. My whole 
body was a-tingle with excitement when I found myself 
snugly tucked up in shawls on the back seat of the roomy 
chariot, beside the dear old lad}^, and rolling down the road. 
We had not gone far before she untied and took off my 

38 



A FRIGHT 

bonnet, antl tied over my curly head a great red bandanna 
handkerchief "to keep your ears warm." The warm color 
and the tlelicious cosiness of the covering jjut an idea into 
my head. I had heard the story of Red Riding Hood from 
my colored nur.se, and I had already the trick of "playing 
ladies," as I named the story-making that has been my 
trade ever since. I was Red Riding Hood, and my grand- 
mother was taking me away from the wolf. The woods we 
I)resently entered were full of fairies. They swung from 
tile little branches of .shrubs that brushed the carriage- 
windows, and peeped at me from behind the boles of oak 
and hickory, and climbed to the top of sweetbrier sprays 
writhing in the winter wind. One and all, they did obei- 
sance to me as I di-ovc in my state coach through the 
forest aisles. I notlded back indastriously, and would 
have kissetl my hand to them had not Grandma McQuic 
told me to keep it under the shawl. 

My companions in the carriage paid no attention to my 
smiles and antics. They were basy talking of their own 
affairs, and probably did not give the silent child a look 
or thought. A word or a curious glance would have si)oiled 
the glorious fim that lasted mitil I was lifted in Mr. McC^uie's 
arms at his hospitable door. 

I never spoke of the "make believe." What child 
does? 

The Bragg house was roomy and rambling, antl nolx)dy 
troubled herself to look after me when I would steal away 
alone to the stairs leading to the room we had occupied 
while Mrs. Bragg and Lucy were alive, and sit on the steps 
which still bore the stains of the scorching flames that had 
licked up poor Lucy's life, and dreaming over the details 
as I had had them, over and over, from my sister and 
'Lizabeth, the colored girl whose life-work was to "look 
after" us three. 

Just opposite the door of our old room was one that 

39 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

was always closed and locked and bolted. It shared in 
the ghoul-like interest I gave to the scorched stairs, and 
there was reason for this. The furnitiu'e of Mrs. Bragg's 
chamber was stored here. Through a wide keyhole I 
could espy the corner of a bureau, and all of a Boston 
rocker, cushioned and valanced with dark-red calico. This, 
I assumed in the fancies which were more real than what 
I beheld with the bodily eyes, had been the favorite seat 
of the dead woman. 

One wild March day, when the rain thundered upon the 
roof over my head, and the staircase and hall echoed with 
sighs and whistlings, my eye, glued to the awful keyhole, 
saw the chair begin to rock! Slowly and slightly; but it 
actually swayed back and forth, and, to the horrified fancy 
of the credulous infant without, there grew into view a 
shadowy form — a pale lady about whose slight figure flowed 
a misty robe, and who held a baby in her arms. 

One long, wild look sufficed to show me this. Then I 
sped down the stairs like a lapwing, and into the dining- 
room, where sat 'Lizabeth holding my baby brother. I 
rushed up to her and babbled my story in panting in- 
coherence. I had seen a ghost sitting in Mrs. Bragg's 
rocking-chair, getting a baby to sleep! 

The exemplary nurse was adequate to the occasion 
thrust suddenly upon her. Without waiting to draw 
breath, she gave me the lie direct, and warned me that 
"Mistis wouldn't stan' no sech dreadful stories. Ef so be 
you wan' a whippin' sech as you never had befo' in all yer 
born days, you jes' better run into the chamber an' tell 
her what you done tole me, Miss Firginny!" 

I did not go. Suppression of the awful truth was pref- 
erable to the certainty of a chastisement. Our parents 
were strict in their prohibition of all bugaboo and ghost 
stories. That may have been the reason we heard so many. 
It certainly accounts for our reticence on subjects that 

40 



A FRKIHT 

craniiiied our brains with fancies anci chilled the marrow 
in our young lx)nes. 

The wind, finding its way between sashes and under the 
ill-fitting doors of the old house, no doubt set the chair in 
motion. .My heated imagination did the rest. Five min- 
utes' talk with my mother or one hearty laugh from my 
father would have laid the spectre. She loomed up more 
and more tlistinctly before my mental vision because I 
kept the awesome experience locked within my own heav- 
ing heart. 

Another thrilling incident, framed in memoiy as a fade- 
less fresco upon the wall of a locked temple, is the Bragg 
burial-lot, in which lay Lucy, her mother and baby- 
brother, and Mi-s. Moore, Mi-s. Bragg's mother, who had 
followed her daughter to :he grave a few weeks before we 
returned to the house. A low brick wall enclosed the plot, 
which was overgrown with nc-nrc.ed shrubbery and l)riers. 
On a certain day 1 set my . mall head hkc a fiint upon the 
execution of no less an enterprise .han a visit to the for- 
bidden ground and a peep tln-ough the gates at the (jraves! 
I had never seen one. I do not know what I expected to 
behold of raw-head-and-bloody-bones horror. But 'Liza- 
beth's hobgoi)lin and vanijiire recitals had enkindled within 
me a biu-ning curiosity to inspect a charnel-house. Visions 
of skeletons lying on the bare ground, of hovering spectres 
and nameless Udolphian marvels, wrought me up to the 
expedition. The graveyard was a long way off — quite 
at the Ijottom of the garden, and the walk thither was 
breast-high in dead weeds. I buffeted them valiantly, 
striding ahead of my comjjanions — my protesting sister, 
'Lizabolh, and the baby borne upon her hip — and was 
so near the goal that a few minutes would show me 
all there was to see, when I espied Something gliding 
along the toj) of the wall! Something that was white 
and stealthy; something that moved without sound, 

41 



MARION IIARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and that wore i)rojccting ribbon bows upon a snowy 
head! 

'Lizabeth emitted a bloodcurdling shriek: 

"Ole Mis' Moore! Sure's you born! Don' you see her 
cap on her hade?" 

We fled, helter-skelter, as for our four lives, and never 
stopped to look behind us. 

The apparition did resemble the crown of a mob-cap 
with knots of black ribbons at the sides. I saw, almost 
as plainly as I had beheld her daughter's wraith, the form 
hidden by the wall, picking her way over the brier-grown 
enclosure. 

I do not know how much longer we lived at the Bragg 
house. Sui'e am I that I never paid a second call upon the 
denizens of the half-acre defended by the brick wall. 

Years afterward, my mother told me the true tale of the 
old lady's pet cat that would not leave her mistress's grave, 
having followed in the fimcral train down the long alley, 
and seen the coffin laid in the ground on the day of the 
funeral. The dumb beast haunted the burying-ground 
ever after, living on birds and field-mice, and starved to 
death in a deep snow that lay long on the frozen ground 
the second winter of her watch. 

Why the four-year-old child did not lose what wits were 
hers by nature, or become a nerveless coward for the rest 
of her days, under the stress of influences never suspected 
by her parents, was due, probably, to a strain of physical 
and mental hardihood inherited from a dauntless father. 

It must have been shortly after this incident that, com- 
ing into the dining-room one morning, I heard my mother 
say to my father: 

"My dear, Frank has the Western fever!" 

Frank Wilson, a nice boy, the son of a neighboring 
planter, was my father's bookkeeper and an inmate of our 
house. He was very kind to me, and had won a lasting 

42 



THE WESTERN FEVER 

jilaco in my regard as the maker of the very best whistles 
and lifes of ehinca))!]! hark of any one I had ever known. 
They piped more shnlly and held their shape lonj^er than 
those turned out by my father and by various visitoi-s who 
paid court to my young lady cousins through me. So I 
looked anxiously at the alleged sufferer, startled and pained 
by the announcement of his affiiction. He was eating his 
breakfast composedly, and answered my father's "Good- 
moming — and is that true, my lx)y?" with a pleasant 
laugii. There was not a sign of the invalid in look, action, 
or tone. 

"I can't deny it, sir!" 

I slipped into my chair beside him, receiving a caressing 
pat on th(^ hand I laid on his arm, and hearkened with 
greedy ears for further jxirticulai-s of the case, never asking 
a question. Children of that generation were trained to 
make thiMr ears and eyes do c'uty for the tongue. I com- 
prehended but a ti'.he of the ensuing conversation. I 
mad(> out that the mysterious fever did not affect Frank's 
ap|)etite and general health, but that it involved the neces- 
sity of his leaving as for a long time. He might never 
come back. His provi.so in this direction was, "If I do 
as well as I hope to do out there." 

When he had excused himself and left the table, my 
father startled me yet more by his answer to my mother's 
remark: "We shall miss him. He is a nice boy!" 

Her husband stirred his coffee meditatively for a moment 
before saying, without looking uj): 

"I am not sure that I have not a touch of that same 
fever myself." 

With the inconsequence of infancy, I did not connect 
the speech with our breaking up the Lunenburg home 
the next autumn and setting out for what was explained 
to iLs girls as a round of visits to friends in Richmond and 
Powhatan. 

4.3 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

We call ours a restless age, and the modern American 
man a predatory animal, with an abnormal craving for 
adventure. Change and Progress are the genii who claim 
his allegiance and sway his destiny. In sighing for the 
peace and rest of the '^ former times" we think were 
''better than these," we forget (if we ever knew) that our 
sires were possessed by, and yielded to, unrest as intense 
and dreams as golden as those that animate the explorer 
and inventor of the twentieth centmy. My father was in 
no sense a dreamer of day dreams of the dazzling impossible. 
He was making a fair living in the heart of what was, even 
then, "Old Virginia." He had recouped his shattered fort- 
unes by judicious business enterprise, and the neat share 
of her father's estate that had fallen to my mother at his 
demise in 1829, placed her and her children beyond the 
reach of poverty. The merchant was respected here as 
he had been in Amelia, for his intelligence, probity, courtesy, 
and energy. His place in society and in church was as- 
sured. Yet he had caught the Western fever. And — a 
mightier marvel — "Uncle Carus," the clerical Connecticut 
Yankee, the soul of conservatism, who had settled in the 
downiest of nests as the incumbent of Mount Carmel, a 
Presbyterian church built upon the outskirts of the Mon- 
trose plantation, and virtually maintained by that family 
— sober, ease-loving Uncle Carus — had joined hands with 
his wife's brother-in-law in the purchase of Western lands 
and the scheme of emigration. 

The two men had travelled hundreds of miles on horse- 
back during the last year in quest of a lo«ation for the new 
home. My father's letters — worn by many readings, and 
showing all over the odd and unaccountable brown thumb- 
marks of time — bear dates of wayside post-offices as well 
as of towns — L5mchburg, Staunton, and Charlottesville. 
Finally they crossed the Ohio line, and after due delibera- 
tion, bought a farm in partnership. The letters are inter- 

44 



I 



TliL WESTEU.N FEVER 

estiii"; reading, but too many and too long to be copied 
in full. 

lA'cry detail of business and each variation of j)lans 
were communicated as freely as if the wife were associated 
with him in commercial as in domestic life. 

Once, when he is doubtful what step to take next, he 
writes, i)layfully: "Some men need a propelling power. 
It might be well for you to exert a little of the 'govern- 
ment' with wliich some of our friends accredit you, and 
move 77ie in the right direction." 

When, the long journey accomi)lishcd and the purchase 
of the farm comi)leted, he returned iiome, he encountered 
no opposition from his wife, ijut nuicli from neighbors and 
friends. A letter written to her from Lunenburg, whither 
he had retmuied U) close up his aft'airs, leaving her with 
her bmther at Olney, describes the numerous tokens of 
regret and esteem of which he is the recipient. The climax 
of the list comes in the humorous tale of how an old- 
fashioned neiglilx)r, Mrs. L , "says it troubled her so 

much on New Year's night that she could not sleep. She 
actually got up after trying vainly to court slumber, 
UifliU'd her pipe, and smoked and thought the matter over. 
She was not reconciled, after all. . . . \\lieii 1 tak(> my de- 
parture it will be with feelings of |)rofound regret, and 
full confidence in the friendshij) of those I leave behind." 

The land lx)ught in Ohio by the two victims of the 
"Western fever" is now covered by th(> city of Cleveland. 
If the two New-Englandei>! could have forecast the future, 
their heirs would be multi-millionaires. 

Hehold us, then, a family of two adults and three babies 
— the eldest not yet seven years old — eyi route from Rich- 
mond to Montrose, ti"a veiling in a big barouche, with a 
trunk strapped on the rack behind, in lumbering progress 
over tliirty-seven miles of execrable roads, just now at their 
worst after a week of autmnnal rains. 

45 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The damp discomfort of the jom'ney is present with me 
now. The sun did not shine all day long; the raw air 
pierced to the bones; the baby was cross; my mother was 
not well, and my sister and myself were cramped by long 
sitting upon the back seat. Our horses were strong, but 
mud-holes were deep, the red clay was adhesive, and the 
cordm'oy causeways jarred us to soreness. It was late in 
the day when we turned from the highway toward the gate 
of the Montrose plantation. We were seen from the house, 
and a colored lad of fifteen or thereabouts ran fleetly down 
the avenue to open the great outer gate. He flung* it wide 
with a hospitable intent that knocked poor Selim — the off- 
horse — flat into the mud. Once down, he did not offer 
to arise from the ruddy ooze that embedded one side. He 
had snapped the harness in falling, but that made no 
difference to the fagged-out beast. The accident was 
visible from the i)orch of the house, an eighth of a mile 
away, and four men hastened to the rescue. 

The foremost was, I thought, the handsomest man I 
had ever seen. He was tall, young, as dark as a French- 
man (having Huguenot blood in his veins), and with a 
marvellously sweet smile. Coming up to my pale mother, 
as she stood on the miry roadside, he kissed her, picked 
up the baby, and bade "Cousin Anna" lean upon his 
other arm. My father insisted upon relieving him of the 
child; but the picture of my delicate mother, supported 
in the walk up the drive by the gallant youth — her favorite 
cousin of all the clan — Josiah Smith, of Montrose — will 
never leave the gallery of pictm-es that multiplied fast 
from this date. 

I did him loving honor to the best of my poor ability as 
the ''Uncle Archie" of "Judith." I cannot pass him by 
without this brief tribute. 

A second and younger cousin, who seemed uninterest- 
ing beside my new hero, took charge of my sister and my- 

46 



MONTROSE 

self, and we trudged stiffly on to the ancient homestead. 
An avalanche of feminine cousins descended upon us as 
we entered the front gate, and swept us along through 
porch and hall and one room after another, to the "cham- 
ber," where a beautiful old lady lay in bed. 

Her hair was dark as midnight; so were her eyes; her 
caj3, })illows, gown, and the bed-coverings were snowy white. 
Her face was that of a saint. This was "Aunt Smith," the 
widowed mistress of Montrose. She was of the Huguenot 
Michaux stock, the American founders of a colony on 
James River. During a widowhood of twenty years she 
had, by wise management, relieved the estate from em- 
barrassment, brought up and educated six children, and 
established for herself a reputation for intelligence, refine- 
ment, and piety that is yet fragrant in the minds of those 
who recollect Montrose as it was in its palmy days. 

She was often ailing, as I saw her now. Accustomed as 
I am to the improved physical condition of American 
women, I wonder ivhal was amiss with the gentlewomen 
of that generation; how they lived through the pro- 
tracted seasons of " feeling poorly," and their frecjuent con- 
finement to l)ed and bed-chambers. The observation of 
that wint(M* fixed in my imagination the belief that genteel 
invalidism was the normal state of what the colored ser- 
vants classified as "real ladies." To be healthy was to 
approximate vulgarity. .Vunt Smith was as nuich in her 
bed as out of it — or, so it seemed to me. Her eldest child, 
a daughter and the most brilliant of the family, had not 
had a day of perfect health since she had an unhappy love- 
afTair at twenty. She was now nearly forty, still vivacious, 
and the oracle of the homestead. My dearest "Cousin 
Mary," resident for the winter at Montrose with her mother, 
was fragile as a wind-flower, and my own mother fell ill 
a few days after our arrival at her mother's birthplace, 
and did not lift her head from the pillow for three months. 

47 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I have no data by which to fix the relative times of any 
happenings of that long, long, dreary winter. It dragged 
by like an interminable dream. My father was absent in 
Ohio for some weeks of the first month. He had set out 
on a second journey to his Promised Land when his wife 
fell ill. He hurried back as soon as the news overtook him. 
But it took a long time for the letter of recall to find 
him, and as long for him to retrace his steps — or his 
horse's. 

I have but a hazy recollection of his telling me one day 
that I was five years old. I had had other birthdays, of 
course, but this was the first I remember. It was equally, 
of course, the 21st of December, There was no cele- 
bration of the unimportant event. If anybody was glad 
I was upon the earth, I had no intimation of the fact. 
I should not mark the anniversary as of any note, now, 
had not it been fixed in my brain by a present from my 
father of The New York Reader, a hideous little volume, 
with stiff covers of straw pasteboard pasted over with blue 
paper. My father took me upon his knee, and talked to 
me, seriously and sorrowfully, of my crass ignorance and 
disinclination to "learn." I was five years old, and — this 
low and mournfully, as one might state a fact disgraceful 
to the family connection — I "did not even know my 
letters!" The dear mother, who lay sick up-stairs, had 
tried, over and over, to teach me what every big girl of my 
age ought to know. He did not believe that his little 
daughter was a dunce. He hoped that I loved my mother 
and himself well enough to try to learn how to read out of 
this nice, new book. Cousin Paulina CariLS — a girl of si^iteen, 
at home from school on sick-leave, indefinitely extended — 
had offered to teach me. He had told her he was sure I 
would do better than I had done up to this time. He was 
mortified when people asked him what books I had read, 

and he had to tell the truth. He did not believe there was 

48 



A MOTHER REGAINED 

another "nice" child in the county, five years old, who did 
not know her a, b, c's. 

I was wetting his frilled shirt front with penitential tears 
long before the sermon was finished. He wiped them with 
a big silk handkerchief — red, with white spots scattered 
over the expanse — kissed me, and set me down very 
gently. 

"My little girl will not forget what father has been say- 
ing. Think how pleased mother will be when she gets 
well to find that you can read a chapter in the Bible to 
her!" 

The story went for fact in the family that I set 
myjolf zealously about the appointed task of learning 
the alphabet in conscMiuence of this lecture. I heard it 
told, times without number, and never contradicted it. It 
sounded well, and I had a passion for heroinism, on never 
so small a scale. And grown people should know what 
they were talking of in asserting that "Virginia made up 
her mind, the day she was five years old, that she would 
turn over a new leaf, and be no longer a dunce at her books." 
It may be, too, as I now see, that the solemn parental 
homily (I always dreaded the lectm'e succeeding a whip- 
ping more than the stripes) — it may be, I grant, that some- 
thing was stirred in my fallow intellect akin to the germina- 
tion of the "bare grain" mider spring showers. If this 
were true, it was a clear case of what theologians term 
"unconscious conversion." Were I to trust to my own 
judgment, based upon personal rennniscence, I should say 
that I went to bed one night not — as the phrase goes — 
"knowing B from a bull's foot," and awoke reading. Per- 
haps Dogberry was nearer right than we think in averring 
that "reading and writing come by natm'e." And that 
my time was ripe for receiving them. 

I had outgrown my dislike of The New York Reader, 
wearing most of the blue paper off the straw, and loosen- 

49 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ing not a few of the tin}^ fibres beneath; I could read, 
without spelUng aloud, the stories that were the jelly to 
the pill of conning the alphabet and the combinations 
thereof; the spring had really come at last on the tardy 
heels of that black winter. The grass was lush and warm 
under my feet; the sweetbrier and multiflora roses over 
the Montrose porches were in bloom, and the locust-trees 
were white with flowers and resonant with the hum of 
bees, when, one day, as I played in the yard, I heard a 
weak, sweet voice calling my name. 

Looking up, I saw my mother in a white gown, a scarlet 
shawl wrapped about her shoulders, leaning from her bed- 
room window and smiling down upon me. 

I screamed with ecstasy, jmnping up and down, clap- 
ping my hands, and crying to my dusky playfellows. Rose 
and Judy: 

''Look! Oh, look! I have a mother again — as well as 
anybody!" 

Close upon the blessed apparition came her champion- 
ship of her neglected "middle child," against the imposi- 
tions of " Mea," Anne Carus, and a bigger niece of Aunt 
Smith who was much at the homestead. On a happy 
forenoon the mother I had received back from the edge 
of the grave called me to her bedside, for, although con- 
valescent, she did not rise until noon. 

Pointing to a covered basket that stood by her bed, she 
bade me lift the lid. Within, upon white paper, lay 
a great handful of dried cherries, a sheet of " peach 
leather," and four round ginger-cakes, the pattern and 
taste of which I knew well as the chef d'cetivre of the 
"sweeties" manufactured by Mam' Peggy, the Montrose 
cook. 

"I heard that the bigger children had a tea-party last 
night after you had gone to bed," she said, smilingly ten- 
der. "It isn't fair that my little daughter should not have 

50 



A MUTHEii KECiAlNEi) 

her sharo. So I sent Jane"— her maid— "down for these, 
and saved them for you." 

No other ''goodies" were ever so dehcious, but their 
finest flavor was drawn fi'om the mental repetition of the 
exultant: "I have a mother again— as well as anybody!" 



our powhatan home — a country funeral — old mrs. 

o'hara." 

My mother's illness of nearly four months deflected the 
cm-rent of our lives. My father, convinced probably of 
the peril to her life of a Western jom-ney, and wrought 
upon by the persuasions of her relatives, bought the "good- 
will and fixtures" of a store at Powhatan Court House, a 
village seven miles nearer Richmond than Montrose, and 
thither we removed as soon as the convalescent was strong 
enough. 

Her husband wrote to her from Richmond en route for 
"the North," where he was to purchase a stock of the 
"goods" upon which the territory environing his new 
home was dependent for most of the necessaries and all 
of the luxmics of life. 

"I am very solicitous as to 3^our early restoration to health. 
Be careful not to rise too early, and keep a strict watch over 
your appetite. It is not safe to indulge it, yet there is danger 
in the opposite course. . . . 

"I attended a prayer-meeting at Mr. Hutchinson's on 
Thursday evening, and had the pleasure of hearing a lecture 
from Mr. Nettleton. It was a pleasant meeting. I wish you 
had been with me! To-day (Sunday) I heard Mr. Plumer and 
Mr. Brown, both of whom were interesting. Mr. Plumer's 
subject was the young ruler running to Our Saviour and kneel- 
ing down with the inquiry, ' What must I do to be saved ?' . . . 

"Your brother was at church yesterday. His wife has a 
fine boy a month old. You have probably heard of the event, 

52 



OUR POWHATAN HOME 

although I did not until my arrival here. I am told he says 
it is 'the prettiest thing that was ever seen/ and feels quite 
proud of this, their first exhibition. 

"There is great difficulty in getting to New York this 
spring. The Delaware was closed by ice for two months, and 
up to the middle of March this was eighteen inches thick. 
Merchants have been detained in Baltimore from two to seven 
days, waiting for stages to go on. The number of travellers 
was so large that they could not be accommodated sooner. 
The steamboat runs from Richmond to Baltimore but once a 
week, and leaves on Sunday morning. Several of my ac- 
quaintances went on to-da^^ They were urgent that I should 
go with them, but my determination is not to travel on the 
Sabbath. I shall, therefore, take the land route to Balto. . . . 

"Goods are reported to be very scarce and high in all the 
Northern cities. They are high in this place, and advancing 
every day. Groceries are dearer than I have seen them since 
1815, and it is thought they will be yet dearer. 

"'That will do!' I hear you say, 'as I am not a merchant.' 
Well, no more of it! I must charge you again to be very, 
very careful of yourself. Kiss our little children for father. 
I shall hurry through my business here as soon as possible 
and hasten my return to my home. 

"May the Lord bestow on you His choicest blessings and 

grant a speedy return of health! Remember me in your 

prayers. Adieu, my Love! ' ^ ^- a ?' 

^ -^ ' -^ lour own S. 

The sere and yellow sheet is marked on the outside, in 
the upper left-hand corner, ''Single," in the lower, "Mail," 
and in the upper right-hand, " 12 cents." 

This was in the dark ages when there was but one 
steamer per week to Baltimore, and there were not stages 
enough to carry the passengers from the Monument City 
to New York; when the railway to Fredericksburg was 
a dream in the minds of a few Northern visionaries, and the 
magnetic telegraph was not even dreamed of. My mother 
has told me that, in reading the newspaper aloud to her 

53 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

father in 1824, she happened upon an account of an in- 
vention of one George Stephenson for running carriages 
by steam. Captain Sterhng laughed derisively. 

"What nonsense these papers print! You and I won't 
live to see that, little girl!" 

I heard the anecdote upon an express train from Rich- 
mond to New York, his "little girl" being the narrator. 

In those same dark ages, strong men, whom acquaint- 
ances never accused of cant, or suspected of sentimentality, 
went to evening prayer-meetings, and accounted it a de- 
light to hear two sermons on Sunday; laid pulpit teach- 
ings to heart; practised self-examination, and wrote love- 
letters to their own wives. If this were not the "Simple 
Life" latter-day philosophists exploit as a branch of the 
New Thought Movement, it will never be lived on this 
low earth. 

Our first home in the little shire-town (then "Scottville") 
was at " Belle vue," a red brick house on a hill overlooking 
the hamlet. Separated from Bellevue by two fields and 
the public highway, was "Erin Hill," built by one of the 
same family, which had, it is needless to observe, both 
Irish and French blood in it. 

Erin Hill was for rent just when Uncle Carus decided to 
bring his family fro*m Montrose — where they had lived for 
ten years — to the village. 

This is the fittest time and place in which to sketch the 
pastor of Mount Carmel Church. Martin Chuzzlewit was 
not written until a score of years later. When it was 
read aloud in our family circle, there was not a dissenting 
voice when my mother uttered, in a voice smothered by 
inward mirth, "Mr. Carus!" as Mr. Pecksniff appeared 
upon the stage. 

The portrait was absurdly striking. The Yankee Peck- 
sniff was good-looking after his kind, which was the dark- 
eyed, well-featured, serenely-sanctimonious type. He wore 

54 



OUR POWHATAN HOME 

his hair longer than most laymen cut theirs, and it cui'led 
natui'ally. His voice was low and even, with the pulpitine 
cadences hit off, and at, cleverly by Doctor Holmes as 
"a tone supposed by the speaker to be peculiarly pleasing 
to the Almighty." 

His smile was sweet, his gait was felinely dignified, and 
a pervasive aroma of meekness tempered his daily walk 
and conversation. His wife, "Aunt Betsy," was the saint- 
liest soul that ever rated herself as the least important 
of God's creatures, and cared with motherly tenderness 
for everything else her Creator brought within her modest 
sphere of action. In all the years of our intimate associa- 
tion I never saw her out of temper or heard a harsh word 
from the lips in which nestled and abode the law of kind- 
ness. She brought him a tidy little slice of her father's 
estate, which he husbanded wisely. He was economical 
to parsimony, and contrived to imbue wife and children 
with a lively sense of the need of saving in every conceiv- 
able way "against a rainy day." 

At ten years of age I asked my mother, point-blank, 
what salary the church paid Uncle Carus. She answered 
as directly: 

"Three hundred dollars a year. But he has property 
of his own." 

Whereupon, without the slightest idea of being pert, I 
remarked, "If we were to get a really good preacher, I 
suppose he would have to be paid more." And my mother 
responded as simply: "No doubt. But your Uncle Carus 
is a very faithful pastor." 

I put no cjuestions, but I pondered in my heart the pur- 
port of a dialogue I got in snatches while reading on the 
back porch one afternoon, when a good-hearted neighbor 
and my mother were talking of the school to be opened in 
the village under the tuition of Cousin Paulina, the eldest 
daughter of Aunt Betsy and her second husband. 

55 



MARION HARLAND'8 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

She was now in her eighteenth year, a graduate of a 
somewhat noted "female" seminary, decidedly pretty, 
with a quick temper and a talent for teaching. 

"It is a pity," said the friendly visitor, "to tie her down 
to a school-room when she is just at the age when girls 
like to see company and go round with other young people. 
It isn't as if they were obliged to put her to work." 

My mother replied discreetly, yet I detected a sym- 
pathetic tone in her speech. 

The talk came into my mind many a time after the 
sessions of the school began, and I saw, through the window, 
young men and girls walking, riding, and driving past, the 
girls in their prettiest attire, the young men gallantly 
attentive, and all enjoying the gala-time of life that comes 
but once to any of us. 

If the dark-eyed, serious, eighteen-year-old teacher felt 
the deprivation, she never mm'mui'ed. I think her mother 
had taught her, with her first word and trial-step, to believe 
that her "father knew best." 

The school — the first I ever attended — was in the 
second story of an untenanted house on a side-street, 
rented from a villager. It was kept for ten months of the 
year. A vacation of a month in May, and another in Sep- 
tember, divided two terms of five months each. I climbed 
the carpetless stairs to the big upper room six or eight 
times daily for five days a week, for forty weeks, and 
never without a quailing of nerve and sinking of heart as 
I strode past a locked door at the left of the entrance. 

Inside of that door I had had my first view of Death. 

I could not have been six years old, for it was summer, 
or early autumn, and I was walking my doll to sleep up 
and "down the main alley of the garden, happy and bare- 
headed, and unconsciously "feeling my life in every limb," 
when my mother called to me from the window to "come 
and be dressed." 

56 



A COUNTRY FUNERAL 

"I am going to take you and yom* sister to a funeral," 
she continued, as a maid buttoned me up in a clean white 
frock, put on my Sunday shoes, and brushed the rebellious 
mop of hair that was never smooth for ten minutes in the 
day. 

"May I take my doll?" asked I, "sh-sh-ing" her in a 
cuddling arm. I was trying very hard to love lifeless 
dolls. 

"Shame on you, Miss Firginny!" put in the maid, for all 
the world as if I had spoken in church. "Did anybody 
ever see sech another chile fur sayin' things?" she added 
to my mother. 

Mea looked properly shocked; my mother, ever light 
of heart, and inclined to let miimportant mistakes pass, 
smiled. 

"We don't take dolls to fmierals, my daughter. It 
would not be right." 

I did not push inquiries as to the nature of the enter- 
tainment to which we were bound, albeit the word, already 
familiar to me by reason of two or three repetitions, was 
not in my vocabulary an horn' ago. Content and pleased 
in the knowledge that an outing was on foot, I put my 
doll to bed in a closet under the stairs used by Mea and 
myself as a "baby-house," shut the door to keep Argus 
and Rigo — sprightly puppies with inquisitive noses — from 
tearing her limb from limb, as they had rent her imme- 
diate predecessor, and sallied forth. The roadside was 
thick with sheep-mint and wild hoarhound and tansy. I 
bruised them in dancing along in front of my mother 
and my sober sister. The bitter-sweet smell arose to my 
nostrils to be blent forever in imagination with the event 
of the day. ■ 

A dozen or more carriages were in the road before the 
shabby frame house I had heard spoken of as "old Mrs. 
O'Hara's," but which I had never entered. Eight or ten 

57 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

horses were tethered to the fence, and a group of men 
loitered about the door. As we went up the steps I saw 
that the parlor was full of villagers. Some were sitting; 
more were standing in a kind of expectant way; all were 
so grave that my spirits fell to church-temperature. Some- 
thing solemn was going on. Just inside of the parlor door 
the mother of my most intimate girl-friend sat in a rocking- 
chair. She had on a black silk dress and her best bonnet. 
Every woman present wore black. I saw Mrs. D. beckon up 
Major Goode, an elderly beau who was a notable figure in 
the neighborhood, and whisper audibly to him, "If you 
want more chairs, you may send over to our house for 
them." 

It was evidently a great function, for Mrs. D. was a 
notable housekeeper, and her furniture the finest in the 
place. Her drawing-room chairs were heavy mahogany, 
and upholstered with black horsehair. Her house, alto- 
gether the best within a radius of several miles, was not 
a hundred yards from the O'Hara cottage; but that she 
should make the neighborly offer thrilled me into name- 
less awe. 

My mother moved forward slowly, holding my hand 
fast in hers, and I was led, without warning, up to a long, 
black, open box, set upon two chairs, one at each end. 
In the long, black box lay a woman I had never seen be- 
fore. She was awfully white; her eyes were shut; she 
looked peaceful, even happy; but. she was not asleep. No 
sleeping creature was ever so moveless and marble-pale. 
Her terrible stillness impressed me most painfully by its 
very imlikeness to the heaving, palpitating crowd about 
her. A mob-cap with a closely fluted border framed the 
face; she was dressed in a long cambric gown of a pattern 
entirely new to me. It lay in moveless plaits as stiff as 
paper from her chin to her feet, which it hid; it was pinked 
in tiny points at the bottom of the skirt and the cuffs; 

58 



"OLD MRS. O'HARA" 

the hands, crossed at the wrists as no living hands arc 
ever laid, were bound at the crossing with white satin 
ribbon. Under the moveless figui'e was a cambric sheet, 
also i)inkcd at the edges, that fell straight to the floor over 
the sides of the coffin. 

I must have pinched my mother's hand with my tighten- 
ing fingers, for she eyed me in grave surprise, not unmixed 
with re})roof, in taking a seat and drawing me to her side. 
There was no place for children to sit down. I am sm'e 
that she had not an inkling of the unspeakable fright that 
possessed my ignorant mind. 

From that day to this I have never gone to a funeral 
when I could possibly keep away from it upon any decent 
pretext. When constrained by circumstance to be one of 
the party collected about a coffin, I invariably have a re- 
turn, in some measure, of the choking horrors of that awful 
day. For days, sometimes for weeks aftenvard, the dread 
is an obsession I cannot dispel by any effort of will. Argue 
and struggle as I may, I am haunted night and day by 
the memory of the woman whom I never saw while she 
lived. 

As if the brooding hush, so deadly to my childish senses ; 
the funeral sermon, delivered in Uncle Carus's most se- 
pulchral chest tones, and the wild, wailing measm'es of 

" Why should we mourn departing friends?" 

sung to immemorial "China" — were not enough to rivet 
the scene forever upon ray soul, a final and dramatic 
touch was superadded. Two men brought forward a long, 
black top, which they were about to fix in place upon the 
dreadful box, when a young woman in black rushed from 
a corner, flung herself upon her knees beside the coffin, 
and screamed: "Mother, mother! You sha'n't take her 
away!" making as if she would push back the men. 
"Harriet! Harriet!" remonstrated a deep voice, and 

59 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Major Goode, the tears rolling down his cheeks, stooped 
and lifted the daughter by main force. "This won't do, 
child!" 

Fifteen years later, sitting in the calm moonlight upon 
the porch-steps at "Homestead," the dwelling of my 
chum, Effie D., I heard from Mrs. D.'s lips the story of 
Mrs. O'Hara. Her cottage, subsequently our school- 
house, had been pulled down long ago as an eyesore to 
the fastidious mistress of Homestead. At least I got that 
section of the old lady's life that had to do with the gray- 
haired Major Goode, a veteran of the War of 1812. Both 
the actors in the closing scene seemed, in the review of my 
childish impressions of the funeral, to have been too old 
to figure in the talc. 

"You can understand why nobody in the village could 
visit her," concluded the placid narrator to whom I am 
indebted for numberless traditions and real life-romances. 
"The funeral was another matter. Death puts us all upon 
a level." 

There was the skeleton of a chronique scandaleuse in the 
bit of exhumed gossip. 



VI 



OLD-FASHIONED HUSBAND's LOVE-LETTER — AN ALMOST 
HOMICIDE — "slaughtered MONSTER " — A WESLEYAN 
SCHOOLMISTRESS. 

"RoxBURY, July 2Gth, 1838. 
"My dear Wife, — Your esteemed letter of the 20th is at 
hand, and it has reheved my mind to hear that you are all 
doing so well. I suppose you expect a history of my move- 
ments here. Well, on Saturday morning went to Boston; 
in the evening took mother and called on all my Dorchester 
friends — stayed with some five minutes, with others fifteen, etc. 
Sunday, went to church; ver}^ dry sermon in morning; even- 
ing attended Mr. Abbot's church; was much pleased with 
the preaching — text — 'And there came one running and 
kneeling to Him. and said,' etc. At night attended at same 
place what they call a ' Conference Meeting' — quite an interest- 
ing time. IVIonday, went to lirookline — visited sisters. Tea at 
Mr. Davis's; music of the best kind in abundance. Tuesday 
to Boston in morning, evening at home to receive company. 
Quite a pleasant afternoon; a good many Dorchester friends 
calling. Wednesday morning as usual in the city; evening 
held a grand levee: the street filled with chaises and carriages; 
some twenty or more to tea. Really, my visit has created 
quite a sensation among our good friends ; some met yesterday 
afternoon who have not seen each other for ten or more years. 
Don't you think I had better come here oftener to keep up the 
family acquaintance? for it seems to require some extraor- 
dinary event to set these good folks to using their powers of 
locomotion. By-the-by, you must not be jealous, but I had 
a lady kiss me yesterday, for the first time it was ever done 
here, and who do you think it was ? My cousin Mary, of whom 

61 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

you have heard me speak. I have so much love given in 
charge for you, my own dear wife, that it will be necessary to 
send a part of it in this letter for fear that I should not be able 
to travel with it all. I am especially directed to bear from a 
lady two kisses to you from her, and they shall be faithfully 
delivered when we are permitted to meet. You don't know 
how many inquiries have been made after you, and regrets 
expressed that you did not come on with me. Mother says, 
'Tell Anna I should like for Samuel to stay longer, but know 
that he is wanting at home, so will not say a word at his 
leaving.' She sends much love to her daughter Anna. Father 
keeps coming in, and from his movements I judge he is waiting 
for me to finish. You know he is clock-work, so adieu once 
more. Give my love to the girls, and all at the parsonage. 
Kiss the children for father. I must now close my letter by 
commending you to the care and protection of Him who 
preserves, guides, and directs us in all things. May His choicest 
blessing rest on you, my dear wife, and on the children of our 
love! Adieu, my dear wife. 

"Your husband, 

"Samuel." 

Thus cheerily runs the old-fashioned family epistle. 
The writer, who never demitted the habit of going to 
church twice every Sunday, and sometimes thrice, does 
not comment upon the coincidence that he hears again a 
sermon from the text used and "improved" by a Virginia 
divine, two years ago. His mind was full of other things 
just now. This one of his annual visits to his mother was 
a glad holiday. The world was going smoothly wdth him, 
and the hearty congratulations of towaispeople and kindred 
were a-bubble. His mother was happy in her second mar- 
riage. The good deacon was "father" to her son and 
his \vife, and filled the role well. 

My father's namesake son, Samuel Horace, was born 
earlier in the summer. 

Although the month was June, the weather must have 

G2 



AN ALMOST HOMICIDE 

been cold or damp, for a low wood fire burned upon the 
hearth one afternoon as I crept into the "chamber" to 
get a pee{) at the three-days-old bab}', and perchance to 
have a talk with my mother. The nurse, before leaving 
the room on an errand, had laid the infant upon a pillow 
in a rocking-chair (I have it now!) There was no cradle 
in the house, and one had been ordered from Richmond. 
My mother was asleep, and, I supposed, had the baby 
beside her. Stealing noiselessly across the floor, I backed 
up to the Boston rocker, in childish fashion, put my hands 
upon the arms of the chair, and raised myself on tiptoe, 
when the child (aroused, I fancy, by his guardian angel, 
prescient of the good he would accomplish in the world 
he had just entered, and compassionate of the remorseful 
wight whose life would be blighted by the impending deed) 
stretched out his arms and yawned. I saw the movement 
under my lifted arm, and dropped flat upon the rug. I 
must have crouched there for half an hour, a prey to hor- 
rible imaginings of what might have been. My mother 
did not awaken, and the baby went to sleep again. The 
shock would have been terrific to any child. To a dreamer 
like myself, the visions that flitted between me and the 
red embers were as varied as they were fearful. Lucy 
Bragg's tragic death had killed her mother and the baby- 
boy. If I had crushed our new baby, my own sweet 
mother would have died with him. I saw myself at their 
funeral, beside the cofl^in holding them both, and my father 
shrinking in abhorrence from the murderess. Forecasting 
long years to come, I pictured a stricken and solitar}' wom- 
an, shunned by innocent people who had never broken the 
sixth commandment, and cowering beside a brier-grown 
grave, crying as I had read somewhere, "Would to God 
I had died when I was born!" 

I do not think I shed a tear. Tears were dried up by 
the voiceless misery. I know I could not sleep that night 

G3 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

for hours and hoiu's. I know, too, that I never told the 
shameful thing — the almost miu'der — to a living creature 
until it was ten years old. 

I appreciate, most clearly of all, that my baby-brother 
became from that hour, in some sort, my especial property. 
The peculiar tenderness that has characterized our feeling 
for each other, the steadfast affection and perfect confi- 
dence in our mutual love that have known no variableness 
or shadow of turning, for all our united lives, may not 
have been rooted in the vigil of unutterable horror and 
unspeakable thankfulness. I look back upon it as a 
chrism. 

Later in the year, another incident that might have been 
a tragedy, stirred the even flow of domestic life. We had 
finished prayers and breakfast, and my father was half- 
way down the avenue on his way to the village when we 
saw him stop suddenly, retrace his steps hurriedly, enter 
the yard, and shout to the colored butler who was at the 
dining-room window. The man ran out and came back 
shortly, dragging Argus and Rigo into the hall with him, 
shutting the front door. My father was taking down his 
gun from the hooks on the wall of the hall, and, without 
a word, began to load it. 

One of the earliest of our nm-sery lessons was, "Never 
ask questions of busy people!" My mother set the exam- 
ple of obedience to this precept now by silence while her 
husband, with set lips and resolute eyes, rammed down a 
charge of buckshot into the barrel, and, saying, "Keep 
the children in the house!" ran down the steps and down 
the avenue at the top of his speed toward the big gate 
opening upon the village street a hundred yards away. 

From the front windows we now saw a crowd of men and 
boys, tramping down the middle of the highway, firing con- 
fusedly and flinging stones at a great yellow dog trotting 
ahead of them, and snapping right and left as he ran. 

64 



"SLAUGHTERED MONSTER" 

Before my father reached the gate, the dog had turned 
sharjily to the right down a cross-street skirting our lower 
grounds. A low fence and a ditch divided the meadow 
from the thoroughfare. My father kept on our side of the 
fence, raising his gun to cover the brute, which, as we 
could now see, was slavering and growling hoarsely. A 
cry arose from the crowd, anil my mother groaned, as the 
dog, espying the man across the ditch, rushed down one 
side of it and up the other, to attack the new foe. My 
father held his hand mitil the dog was within a few feet 
of him, then fired with steady aim. The brute rolled over 
to the bottom of the ditch — dead. 

That evening we were allowed to walk down the field 
to see the slaughtered monster. That was what I named 
him to myself, and forthwith began a story in several 
chajiters, with my father as the hero, and an astonishing 
nu'ulxu- of beasts of prey as dramatis personw, that lasted 
me for many a night thereafter. 

The title I had chosen was none too large for the dog 
as he lay, stark and still, his big head straight with his 
back, his teeth showing savagely in the open jaws. A 
trickle of water was dammed into a i)ool by his huge bulk. 

I held my father's hand and laid my cheek to it in 
reverence I had not words to express, when my mother 
said : 

"You ran a terrible risk, love! What if your gun had 
missed fire, or you had not hit him?" 

"I had settled all that in my mind. I should have 
stood my groimd and tried to brain him with the butt." 

"A^ your forefathers did to the British at Bunker Hill!" 
exulted I, inwardly. 

Be sure the sentence was not uttered. The recollection 
of the inner life, in which I was wont to think out such 
sayings, has made me more tolerant with so-called priggish 
children than most of their elders are prone to be. 

65 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

One paragraph of our next letter has a distinctly modem 
flavor. By substituting millions for thousands in the esti- 
mate of the defalcation, we might date it in this year of 
our Lord. 

"Richmond, April llth, 1839. 
"(Saturday night.) 
"My dear Wife, — The general subject, and, in fact, the 
only one which at present occupies the minds of the citizens 
here, is the late discovery of defalcations of my old friend D., 
first teller of the Bank of Virginia, for the sum, as reports say, 
of nearly, or quite half a million. He has absconded, but some 
individuals here have had part of the cash; among the number 
is the great speculator, W. D. G., who has ruined and also 
severely injured many persons in this place by borrowing, or 
getting them to endorse for him, I never have before witness- 
ed so general an excitement here. Mr. G. has been arrested 
to-day, and taken before the mayor. It is now nine o'clock, 
and the court is still in session. It is probable he will be sent 
to the higher court for trial, etc. I expect a good many of 
our plain country folks will be afraid of Bank of Virginia 
notes when they hear of the loss. I hope it will make some of 
them shell out and pay me all that they owe. I should like 
to find a few thousands waiting for me on my return home. 
I expect to-morrow to attend the Sabbath"- school at the 
Second Church, conducted by Mr. Reeve. It is said to be the 
best school in the city. Tell Herbert I have bought a book 
called Cobwebs to Catch Flies, and I hope it will be the means 
of catching from him many good lessons. He must learn 
fast, as I have bought for him Sanford and Merton, with plates, 
and when he can read he shall have it for his own. May I not 
hope for a letter from you on Tuesday ? — for it seems a long 
time since we parted." 

Mrs. Bass, the meek widow of a Methodist clergyman, 
succeeded the eighteen-year-old girl in the conduct of the 
neighborhood school. It is doubtful if we learned any- 
thing worth relating from her. I am sure we learned noth- 
ing evil. She was very kind, very gentle, very devout; she 

66 



A WESLEYAX SCHOOLMISTRESS 

wore a widow's cap and a bombazine gown, and she was the 
only woman I ever heard pray mitil I was over fourteen 
years of age. There were a dozen girls in the class, which 
met in a one-roomed building in a lot adjoining her garden. 
We had no jHibhc schools at that date in Mrginia. We 
were all paid pupils, and carefully selected from families 
in our own class. Those from Presbyterian families out- 
numbered the rest, but no objection was made by om* 
parents to the "methods" of the Wesleyan relict. The 
tenets of the two churches were the same in the main. 
Discrepancies in the matter of free agency, predestination, 
and falling from grace were adjudged of minor importance 
in the present case. Mrs. Bass was not likely to trench 
upon them in the tuition of pupils of tender age. I more 
than suspect that thc^re would have been a strong ol> 
jection made to intrusting us to a Baptist, who would not 
lose an opportunity of inculcating the heresy that "bap- 
tize" meant, always and everywhere in the Bible, im- 
mersion. And every school was opened daily by Bible- 
reading. To this our black-robed, sweet-faced instructress 
joined audible petitions, and in our reading and the les- 
sons that followed she let slip no chance of working in 
moral and religious precepts. 

Let one example suffice: 

One of our recitations was spelling, with the definitions, 
from Walker's Dictionary. Betty Mosby, a pretty girl 
with a worldly father and a compliant mother, had learned 
to dance, and had actually attended a kind of "Hunt 
Ball," given in the vicinity by her father's sister. She 
had descanted volubly ui)on the festivities to us in "play- 
times," describing her dress and the number of dances in 
which she figured with "grown-up gentlemen," and the 
hearts of her listeners burned within us as we listened 
and longed. 

On this day the word "heaven" fell to me to spell and 
6 G7 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

define. This done, the "improvement" came in Mrs. 
Bass's best class-meeting tone: 

"Heaven! I hope and pray you may get there, Virginia! 
You ought not to fail of the abundant entrance, for your 
parents are devout Christians and set you a good example, 
but from him to whom much is given shall much be 
required. Next! 'Heavenly!'" 

Near the foot of the column stood "Hell." 

Anne Carus rendered it with modest confidence, spelling 
and defining in a subdued tone befitting the direful mono- 
syllable. That she was a minister's daughter was felt by 
us all to lend her a purchase in handling the theme. Mrs. 
Bass was not to be cheated of her "application": 

"Hell!" she iterated in accents that conveyed the 
idea of recoiling from an abyss. "Ah — h — h! I wonder 
which of my little scholars will lie dowTi in everlasting 
burnings?" 

"Mercy! I hope I won't!" cried Betty Mosby, with a 
shiver of well-acted terror. 

She was a born sensationalist, and quick to voice sensa- 
tion. 

The teacher's groan was that of the trained cxhorter: 

"I can't answer for that, Betty, if you loill dance and 
go to balls!" 

That was her "Firstly." There were at least six heads 
and two applications in the lecture "in season" trailing 
at its heels. 

We took it all as a matter of course. Each teacher had 
ways of his, and her own. Those of our relict were inno- 
cent, and our parents did not intermeddle. We were very 
happy under her tutelage. On Saturdays she had a class 
in "theorem painting." That was what she called it, and 
we thought it a high-sounding title. Decorators know it 
as one style of frescoing. Pinks, roses, dahlias, tulips, and 
other flowers with well-defined petals, also birds and but- 

68 



A WESLEYAN SCHOOLMISTRESS 

tcrflies, were cut out of oiled jniper. Through the open- 
ings left by removing the outhned pattern, paint was 
rubbed ujwn eard-board laid underneath the oiled paper. 
1 have somewhere still a brick-red ijink thus transferred 
to bristol-board — a fearful production. I knew no bet- 
ter than to accept it thankfully when Mrs. Bass had 
written on the back, "To my dear pupil, M. V. H., from 
her affectionate Teacher," and gave it to me with a kiss 
on the last day of the term. 

She gave up the school and left the county at the close 
of that term, going to li\'e with a brother in another part 
of the State. I heard, several years later, that she had 
"professed sanctification" at a Lynchlnn-g cam{)-meeting. 
Nowadays, they would say she "had entered upon the 
Higher Life." 

She niiLst have found, long ago, the abmidant entrance 
into that Highest Life where creeds and thrcatcnings arc 
abolished. Her benign administration was to me a sum- 
mer calm that held no presage of the morrow's storm. 



VII 

MY FIRST TUTOR — THE REIGN OF TERROR 

Late in the October vacation the tranquil routine of 
our household was stirred by news of import to us children. 
We were to have a tutor of our own, and a school-room 
under our roof in true Old Virginia style — a fashion trans- 
planted from the mother-country, eight generations before. 

Our father "did not believe in boarding-schools," hold- 
ing that parents shirked a sacred duty in putting the 
moral and mental training of their offspring into the hands 
of hirelings, and sending them away from home at the 
formative age, just when girls and boys are most in need 
of the mother's love and watchful care of their health and 
principles. Yet he fully appreciated the deficiencies of 
the small private schools we had attended, and would not 
hearken for a moment to the suggestion that we should be 
entered as day-scholars in the ''Old-Field School," which 
prefigured the Co-educational Institute of to-day. " Nice " 
girls and well-born boys attended a school of this kind, 
and lads were prepared for college there. The master was 
himself a college graduate. And the school was within 
easy distance of Scottville. 

"Too much of an omnium gatherum to suit my taste!" 
I had overheard my father say to a friend who urged 
the advantages of this place, adding that B. L. was " a 
good teacher and fair classical scholar." "He may be 
proficient in the classics, but he spells the name of one 
dead language, 'Latten.' I saw it in his own handwriting. 

70 



MY FIRST TUTOR 

I doubt not that he can parse in that tongue. / beheve 
him capable of talking of the 'three R's.' My children 
may never become accomplished, but they shall be able 
to write and speak — and spell — their mother-tongue cor- 
rectly!" 

Besides Mea and myself there were to be in the home- 
class ten other pupils, the daughters of personal friends of 
like mind with the independent thinker, and my brother 
Herbert, lately inducted into the integuments distinctive 
of his sex, was to have his trial taste of schooling. Our 
mother had taught us all to read and to write before com- 
mitting our scholastic education to other hands. I fancy 
we may attribute to her training in the rudiments of learn- 
ing the gratifying circumstance that one and all of her 
children have spelled — as did both parents — with absolute 
correctness. 

The big dining-room in the left wing of the rambling 
house to which we had removed from Bellevue when the 
owner desired to take possession of it, was to be divided 
by a partition into school-room and hall; a room opening 
from the former would be the tutor's chamber, and an 
apartment in another wing was to be the dining-room. 
Among other charming changes in house and family, 
Dorinda Moody, a ward of my father's of whom I was par- 
ticularly fond, was to live with us and attend "our school." 

I trod upon air all day long, and dismissed the fairy 
and wonder tales, with which I was wont to dream myself 
to sleep nightly, for visions of the real and present. "Our 
Tutor" — a title I rolled as a sweet morsel under my rest- 
less tongue — was a divinity student from Union Theological 
Seminary, in Prince Edward County. The widow of the 
founder of this school of the prophets, and the former 
pastor of my parents, lived in the immediate neighborhood 
of the seminary, and was the intermediary in the trans- 
action. Through her my father was put into communi- 

71 



M 



ARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



cation with the faculty— scholars and gentlemen all of 
them!!— who agreed in recommending the student whom 
I have dubbed "Mr.Tayloe" in my Old- Field School-Girl 
(The significance of the twin exclamation-points will be 
manifest in the next few pages.) 

The sun had shivered out of sight below the horizon on 
a raw November day when I returned home after a tramp 
over soaked and sere fields, attended by my young maid 
and her elder sister— " bright " mulattoes— and was met 
in the end-porch by their mother, my mother's personal 
attendant and the supervisor of nursery-tenants. She was 
the prettiest mulatto I have ever seen, owing her regular 
features and long hair, as she was proud of telling, to an 
Indian ancestor. He had entailed upon her the additional 
bequest of a peppery temper, and it was on deck now. She 
was full of bustle and tartly consequential. 

"Lordy, Miss Virginny! whar have you been traipsin' 
so late with jus' these chillun to look after you? It's 
pretty nigh plum dark, an' you, a young lady, cavortin' 
roun' the country like a tom-boy!" 

She hauled me into the house while she talked, and 
pulled off my shawl and hood, scolding vehemently at the 
sight of my muddy shoes, and promising Molly and Paulina 
a whipping apiece for not bringing me back sooner. 

I cared not one whit for her scolding after I heard the 
news with which she was laden. 

Mr. Tayloe had come ! My dream-castle had settled into 
stabihty upon rock bottom. 

Ten minutes afterward the school-room door was pushed 
open timidly, and a childish figure appeared upon the 
threshold. I was rather tall for my years, and as lean 
and nthe as a greyhound. My touzled hair had been wet 
and sleeked by Mary Anne's vigorous fingers. I wore a 
brown "Circassian" frock and a spandy clean white apron. 
The room was comfortably furnished with desks and 

72 



MY FIRST TUTOR 

chairs, now pushed to the wall, the carpeted area aljout 
the hearth being intended as a sitting-room for the tutor. 
There were a table, a desk, and four or five chairs. The 
room was bright with lamp and firelight. In front of the 
red hearth sat my father and a much smaller man. 

His diminutive stature was the first of a series of shocks 
I was destined to receive. I had expected him to be tall 
and stately. Village wags— with none of whom he was 
popular— spread the story that he intermitted his studies 
for a year in the hope that in the interim he might grow 
tall enough to see over the front of a pulpit. 

My father looked owv his shoulder and held out his 
hand. 

"Come in, my daughter," in kindly, hearty accents. 
And, as I obeyed, "Mr. Tayloe, this is my second daughter 
— iMiss Mary Virginia," 

The hei-o of my dreams did not rise. There was naught 
amiss or unusual in the manner of the introduction. I 
was "Miss Virginia" to men of my father's age, as to 
youths and boys. I was used to see them got u{) from 
their seats to speak to me, as to a woman of treble my 
years. I looked, then, almost aghast at the man who let 
me walk up to him and offer my hand before he made 
any motion in recognition of the unimportant fact of my 
presence. His legs were crossed; his hands, the palms 
laid lightly together, were tucked Jx^tween his legs. He 
pulled one out to meet mine, touched my fingers coldly, 
and tucked both hands back as before. 

"How do you do, Mr. Tayloe?" quoth I, primly respect- 
ful, as I had been trained to comport myself with strangers. 
He grunted something syllabic in response, and, chilled 
to the backbone of my being, I retreated to the shadow of 
my father's broad shoulder. He passed his arm about me 
and stroked what he used to call my "Shetland pony 
mane." He seldom praised any one of us openly, but he 

73 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

was a fond father, and he and the "tom-boy" were close 
comrades, 

"I hope you will not find this young lady stupid, Mr. 
Tayloe," he went on, the strong, tender hand still smooth- 
ing the rebelhous locks. "She is a bit flighty sometimes, 
but she has packed away a good deal of miscellaneous in- 
formation in this curly pate. I hope she may become a 
steady student under your care. What she needs is ap- 
plication." 

Receiving no answer beyond a variation of the grunt, 
the tutor staring all the time into the heart of the fire, the 
dear man went on to tell of books that had been read aloud 
in the family, as a supplementary course to what we had 
learned in school, referring to me now and then when he 
did nox recall title or subject. I fancy, now, that he did 
this to rid us both of the embarrassment of the first inter- 
view, and to draw out the taciturn stranger who was to 
guide my mind in future. Loyal as was my worshipful 
admiration of my father, I could not but feel, although 
I could not have formulated the thought, that the trend of 
talk was not tactful. 

Nevertheless, I glowed inwardly with indignation that 
the third person present never once took his eyes from 
the roaring fire, and that his face, round, fair, and almost 
boyish in contour, wore a slight smile, rather supercilious 
than amused, his brows knitting above the smile in a 
fashion I was to know more of in the next ten months. 

I have drawn Mr. Tayloe's portrait at full length in An 
Old-Field School-Girl, and I need not waste time and ner- 
vous tissue in repetition of the unlovely picture. He was 
the Evil Genius of my childhood, and the term of his tute- 
lage may be called the dark underside of an otherwise 
happy school-life. Looking back from the unclouded 
heights of mature age, I see that my childish valuation of 
him was correct. He was, in his association with all with- 

74 



MY FIRST TUTOR 

out the walls of the school-room — always excepting the 
servants, who took his measure amazingly soon — a gentle- 
man in bearing and speech. He was, I have heard, well- 
born. He had gained rank as a student in the university 
of which he was a graduate. 

At heart and in grain he was a coarse, cruel tyrant, 
beloved by none of his pupils, hated by my brother Her- 
bert and myself with an intensity hardly conceivable in 
children of om* tender years. I owe him one evil debt I 
can never forget. Up to now I had had my little gusts of 
temper and fleeting grudges against those who angered 
me. Save for the episode of the doll-whipping recorded in 
an earlier chapter, I had never cherished — if I had felt — 
an emotion of vindictiveness or a desire for revenge. This 
man — this embryo minister of the gospel of love and 
peace — aroused in me passions that had slumbered im- 
suspected by all — most of all, by myself. 

From the beginning he disliked me. Perhaps because he 
chose to assume, from the manner of my introduction to 
him, that I was a spoiled, conceited child who ought to be 
"taken down." Perhaps because, while I flashed up 
hotly under rebuke and sarcasms that entered lavishly 
into the process of "taking doum," I never broke down 
abjectly under these, after the manner of other pupils. 
Our father had the true masculine dislike for womanish 
tears. He had drilled us from babyhood to restrain the 
impulse to ciy. Many a time I was sent from the table 
or room when my eyes filled, with the stern injunction, 
"GfO to your room and stay there until you can control 
yourself!" I thought it harsh treatment, then. I have 
thanked and blessed him for the discipline a thousand 
times since. Our tutor, I verily believed then, and I do 
not doubt now, gloated in the sight of the sufferings 
wrought by his brutality. I can give it no milder name. 
I have seen him smile — a tigerish gleam — when he had 

75 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

scolded the ten outsidei-s — the '^ exteimes,'' as the French 
call them — into convulsive weeping. Mea and I felt the 
lash of his tongue quite as keenly as the rest, but oui' home- 
drill stood us in good stead. 

He rarely found fault with her. She was a comely girl, 
nearly fourteen, and womanly for that age, exemplary in 
deportment, and an excellent student. It could never be 
said of her that she "lacked application." If one thing 
were more hateful to me than his sm'liness and sneers to 
me, it was his cubbish gallantry to my pretty sister. He 
pronounced her openly the most promising of his scholars, 
and volunteered to give her private lessons in botany. 
Such tokens of preference may have been the proof of a 
nascent attachment on his part, or but another of his 
honorable ways of amasing himself. It was a genuine 
comfort to me to see that she met his gallantries with 
quiet self - possession and cool indifference remarkable in 
a country girl who knew nothing of "society" and flirta- 
tion. 

I was the black sheep of the flock, as he took pains to 
say twice or a dozen times a week, in the hearing of the 
school. To me he imparted privately the agreeable in- 
formation that I "would never be anything but a disgrace 
to my parents; that, in spite of what my father might 
say to the contrary, I was stupid by nature and incor- 
rigibly lazy." He rang the changes upon that first mifor- 
tunate interview until I was goaded to dumb frenzy. The 
persecution, begun with the opening day of the term, was 
never abated. He would overhear from his chamber win- 
dow snatches of talk between my mates and myself, as we 
played or sat in the garden below— merry, flippant noth- 
ings, as harmless as the twitter of the birds in the trees 
over our heads. When we were reassembled in the school- 
room he would make my part in the prattle the text of 
a lecture ten minutes long, holding the astonished, quiver- 

76 



MY FIRST TUTOR 

ing child up to ridicule, or stinging her to the quick with 
invectives. AVhen he lost his temper — which happened 
often — he spared nol)ody. He went out of his way to 
attack me. Lest this should read like the exaggeration 
of fancied slights to the self-willed, pert youngling he be- 
lieved nw to be, let me cull one or two sprigs of rue from 
the lush gro^vth that embittered ten months of my exist- 
ence: 

I cut my finger to the bone one morning (I cai'ry the 
scar still). My mother bo mid it up in haste, for the school- 
bell was ringing. I got into my seat just in time for the 
opening exercises. A chapter was read — verse by verse — 
in turn by the pupils, after which the prospective divine 
"offered" a prayer. He stood with his eyes shut and his 
forehead knitted into a frown. We knelt with our backs 
to him befon^ our chairs around the room. It seems but 
natural to me, in reflecting upon that perfunctory "exer- 
cise," that om* reading "in course" should never, during 
Mr. Tayloe's reign, have gone beyond the Old Testament. 
We read that exac^tly as it came — word for word. There 
was nothing of the New Testament in his walk or con- 
versation. 

- On this day we had a chapter in Kings — First or Second 
— in which occurred a verse my father would have skipped 
quietly at om' family worehip. Sarah L. was the big- 
gest girl in the class — in her sixteenth year, and quite 
grown up. She dexterously slipped past the bit of Bible 
liistory, taking the next verse, as if by accident. 

"Go back and read yoiu* verse!" thundered the young 
theologue. "I will have no false modesty in my school." 

My cheeks flamed as redly with anger as Sarah's had 
with maiden shame, as I followed suit with the next pas- 
sage. I resented the coarse insult to a decent girl, and 
the manner thereof. I was faint with the pain of the 
wounded finger, and altogether so unnerved that my voice 

77 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

shook and fell below the pitch at which we were taught to 
read aloud. 

Out barked the bulldog again over the top of the open 
Bible he held : 

"What ails Miss High-and-Mighty to-day? In one of 
your tantrums, I see. Read that verse again, and loud 
enough to be heard by somebody besides your charming 
self!" 

Where — will be asked by the twentieth-century reader — 
was parental affection all this while? How could a fear- 
less gentleman like your father submit for an hour to the 
maltreatment of his yoimg daughter and the daughters of 
friends who confided in his choice of a tutor? 

My answer is direct. We never reported the worst of 
oui* wrongs to om* parents. To "tell tales out of school" 
in that generation was an offence the enormity of which I 
cannot make the modern student comprehend. It was a 
flagrant misdemeanor, condemned by tradition, by parental 
admonition, and by a code of honor accepted by us all. 
I have known pupils to be expelled for daring to report 
at home the secrets of what was a prison-house for three- 
fourths of every working-day. And — strangest of all — 
their mates thenceforward shunned the tale-tellers as sin- 
ners against scholastic and social laws. 

"If you get a flogging at school, you will get another at 
home!" was a stock threat that set the seal of silence upon 
the culprit's lips. To carry home the tale of unjust punish- 
ment meted out to a school-fellow would be a gross breach 
of honorable usage. 

The whole system smacked of inquisitorial methods, and 
gave the reactionary impetus to the pendulum in the mat- 
ter of family discipline and school jurisdiction which 
helped on the coming of the Children's Age in which we 
now live. 

The despotism of that direful period, full of portents 

78 



THE REIGN OF TERROR 

and pain, may have taught me fortitude. It awoke me 
to the possibiUties of evil hitherto undreamed of in my 
sunny hfe. I have lain awake late into the night, again 
and again, smarting in the review of the day's injui'ies, 
and dreading what the morrow might bring of malicious 
injustice and overt insult, and cudgelling my hot brain to 
devise some method of revenge upon my tormentor. 
Childish schemes, all of them, but the noxious seed was one 
with that wliich ripens into murder in the first degree. 

One absurd device that haunted and tempted me for 
weeks was that I should steal into the tutor's room some 
day, when he had gone to ride or walk, and strew chopped 
horsehair between the sheets. The one obstacle to the 
successful prosecution of the scheme was that we had no 
white horses. Ours were dark bay and " blooded chestnut." 
No matter how finely I might chop the hairs, which would 
prick like pins and bite like fleas, the color would make 
them visible when the sheets were turned down. 

It was a crime! — this initiation of a mere infant into the 
mysteries of the innate possibilities of evil in human natm'e. 
I had learned to hate with all my heart and soul. In all 
my childish quarrels I had never felt the temptation to 
lift my hand against a playmate. I understood now that 
I could smite this tyrant to the earth if I had the power 
and the oi)portunity. This lesson I can never forget, or 
forgive him who taught it to me. It was a new and a soiled 
page in the book of experience. 

Despite the continual discouragement that attended the 
effort to keep my promise to study diligently, I worked 
hard in school, partly from love of learning, partly to 
please my parents — chiefly, it must be confessed, because 
I shrank, as from the cut of a cowhide, from the pitiless 
ridicule and abuse that followed ui)on the least lapse 
from absolute perfection in recitation. 

Mathematics was never my strong point, and the tutor 

79 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

quickly detected this one of many weak joints in my 
armor. There was meaning in the grin with which he in- 
formed me one day, not long after Christmas, that he had 
set a test-sum for each of the second class in arithmetic. 

"If you can do that sum without, any, help, from, any- 
body," slowly, the grin widening at each comma, "you 
may go on with the next chapter in arithmetic. If not, 
you will be turned back to Simple Division. Of course, 
you will do yours, if nobody else can work out the answer!" 

Sneer and taunt stung and burned, as he meant they 
should. I took the slate from his hand, and carried it to 
my desk before glancing at it. It was a horrible sum ! I 
knew it would be, and I forthwith made up my mind not 
to try to do it. He might turn me back to Addition, for 
all I cared. The worm had turned and stiffened in stub- 
born protest. 

At recess I discovered that not another girl of the six 
in our class had an imposition half so severe as my enemy 
had set for me. The effect was totally unlike what he had 
anticipated. My spirit heaped to arms. I would do that 
sum and keep up with my class — or die! 

I bore the slate off to my room as soon as school was out 
that afternoon, and wrought mightily upon the task until 
the supper-bell rang. My work covered both sides of the 
slate, and after supper I waylaid my sister in the hall and 
begged her to look at what I had done. She was the crack 
arithmetician of the school, and I could trust her decision. 
She sat down ui)on the stairs — I standing, wretched and 
suspenseful, beside her — and went patiently over it all. 

Then she said, gently and regretfully: "No, it is not 
right. I can't, of course, tell you what is wrong, but you 
have made a mistake." 

With a hot lump in my throat I would not let break into 
tears, I rushed off up-stairs, rubbed out every figure of 
my making, and fell to work anew upon the original ex- 

80 



Till-: REIGN OF TERROR 

ample. Excoj)t when I obeyed the siiinnions to prayers, 
I appeared no more below that night. My sister found me 
bent over the slate when she came up to bed, and said not 
a word to distract my attention. By ten o'clock the room 
was so cold that I got an old Scotch plaid of my father's 
from the closet, and wrajiiKnl myself in it. Still, my limbs 
were numb and my teeth chattered when, at one o'clock 
m the morning, I laid the slate by, in the joyous conviction 
that I had conquered in tlie fii:;ht. I had invented a jiroof- 
method of my own — truly ingenious in a child with no 
turn for mathematics — but this I did not suspect. I hon- 
estly believed, instead, that it was an inspiration from Him 
to whom I had been jii-aying through all the hours of ag- 
onized endeavor. I thanked the Author before I slept. 

When the class was called upon to show their sums 
next morning, it appeared, to my unsj)eakab]e amazement 
and rapture, that my exam[)le and one other — that done 
by Sarah L., who was backward in figures, although ad- 
vanced in years — were right, and all the others wrong. 

The gentle shepherd of our fold took up my slate again 
when the examination was over, and eyed it sourly, his 
head on one side, his fingei"s plucking at his lower lip, a 
trick which I knew pn^faccd something {particularly si)ite- 
ful. Surely I had nothing to fear now? Having wrung 
from him the reluctant admission that my work was cor- 
rect, I might rest upon my laui'els. 

I had underrated his capacity for evil-doing. When he 
glared at me over the upi)er frame of the big slate, the 
too-familiar heart-uaib^ea got hold upon me. 

'^You^' — he seldom deigned to address me by my 
proper name — "pretend to tell me that nobody helped 
you with this sum?" 

"Nobody!" I uttered, made bold by innocence. 

"Ha-a-a-a!" malevolence triumphant in the drawl wax- 
ing into a snarl. "As I happened to see you and your 

81 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

sister last night in the hall, and heard you ask her to show 
you how to do it, that tale won't go down, my lady." 

''She didn't help me — " I began, eagerly. 

^^ Silence P^ thumping the slate upon the table, and scowl- 
ing ferociously. "How dare you lie to me?" 

I glanced at Mea in an agony. She arose in her place, 
pale to the lips, albeit she had never felt his wrath, but 
her voice was firm: 

''I only told her the sum was not right. I did not tell 
her what part of it was wrong." 

The blending of snarl and smile was something to be 
recollected for all time. The smile was for her, the snarl 
for me. 

"It is natiu*al that your sister should try to defend 
you. But will you please tell me. Miss Pert, what more 
help you could have wanted than to be told by somebody 
who knew — as yom- sister did — that your sum was wrong? 
Of com-se, you could rub out and begin again. But for 
her you would not have tried a second time. Bring that 
sponge here!" 

I obeyed. 

"Take that slate!" 

He made as if he would not contaminate his hand by 
passing it to me, laying it on the table and pointing a dis- 
dainful finger at it. 

Again I obeyed. 

" Now, Miss Deceitful, wipe every figure off that slate, and 
never try any such cock-and-bull story upon me again as 
long as you live! I am too old a bird to be caught with 
your chaff!" 

He laughed aloud in savage glee, dismissed the class 
with a wave of his hand, and called up the next. 

I was turned back to Short Division, with the added 
stigma of intentional deception and cheating shadowing 
me. 

82 



THE REIGN OF TERROR 

Nearly fifteen years after our first tutor withdrew his 
baleful i)resence from our home, my husband was urging 
upon my brother Herbert the claims of the ministry of 
reconciliation as the profession to which the younger man 
was evidently called by nature and by Providence. Her- 
bert looked up with the frank smile those who knew him 
will never forget. It was like the clear shining of the 
sweetest and purest soul ever committed to mortal keeping. 

'"Plato! thou reasonest well!' There is but one argu- 
ment you have not bowled over. I registered an oath — as 
bitter as that Hamilcar exacted of Hannibal — when I was 
a boy, that I would thrash that cur Tayloe within an inch 
of his life as soon as I should be big enough to do it. And 
it wouldn't be quite the thing to flog a brother clergyman. 
If anything could keep me out of the pulpit, it would be 
the fact that he is in it. That fellow's cruelties scarred 
my memory for life, although I was not seven years old 
when I knew him." 

In dismissing the disagreeable theme, I offer this bit of 
testimony to the truth of my story of the reign of terror 
neither of us ever forgave. 



\ 



VIII 



CALM AFTER STORM — OUR HANDSOME YANKEE GOVERNESS — 
THE NASCENT AUTHOR 

Among the treasui*ed relics of my youth is a steel en- 
graving in a style fashionable sixty years agone. 

It appeared in Godey's Lady's Book, then in the heyday 
of well-merited popularity. My mother was one of the 
earliest subscribers. Every number was read aloud in the 
family circle gathered on cool evenings about my mother's 
work-stand. We had no ready-made furniture. This piece 
was made to order, of solid mahogany, and is, in the seventy- 
fifth year of a blameless life, in active use in my eldest 
daughter's household. 

Cousin Mary, living on Erin Hill, in her stepfather's 
house, took Graham's Magazine — Godey's only rival. She 
likewise subscribed for the Saturday Evening Courier, and 
exchanged it regularly with my mother for the Satur- 
day Evening Post — all published in Philadel}jhia. The New 
York Mirror, edited by N. P. Willis, George P. Morris, and 
Theodore S. Fay, was another welcome guest in both 
families. For Sunday reading we had the New York 
Observer, The Watchman and Observer, The Presbyterian — 
religious weeklies that circulated in the neighborhood for 
a fortnight, and were then filed for future reference. We 
children had Parley's Magazine sent to us, as long ago as 
I can recollect, by om* grandmother. After the death of 
her second husband, the good old deacon, and her removal 
to Virginia, which events were coeval with the Tayloe 
dynasty, our father subscribed for Parley's. 

84 



CALM AFTER STORM 

We had all Uk; ni'W books that he adjudged to be 
worth Ijuyin^ and reading, watehiiig eagerly for any- 
thing from Dickens, Marryat, and Cooper, and devouring 
with avidity not excited by any novel. StepheiLs's Travels 
in Arabia Petrea and in Central America, Bruce's Travels 
in Ahi/ssitiia, and the no less enchanting tales Mungo Park 
was telling the world of his adventures in the Dark Con- 
tinent. 

"The chamber" was a big room on the first floor, and 
adjoined the dining-room — so big that the wide high- 
poster, curtained and ceiled with gayly figured chintz, in 
a far corner, left three-fourths of the floor-space unoccu- 
pied. My mother's bureau (another heirloom) looked 
small beside the bed; a lounge was between the front 
windows; rocking-chaii-s stood here and there; thick cur- 
tains, matching the bed-hangings, shut out wintry gusts, 
and a great wood fire lea[jed and laughed ujjon the; {)ipe- 
clayed hearth from the first of November to the middle of 
March. A blazi' of dry sticks was kindled there every 
morning and evening up to July 4th. The younger 
children were dressed and undressed there on cool days. 
Our mother held, in advance of her contemporaries, that 
an oi)en tire was a germ-killer. 

Why do I single out that particular engraving for a place 
in these reminiscences? 

It graced the tii-st pjige of the November number of 
Godey's Lady's Book. The evening was wild with wind 
and blustering rain, the fire roaring deflance as thi; loosely 
fitting sashes rattled and th(; showei-s lashed the panes. 
There were five of us girls, and each had some bit of handi- 
work. To sit idle while th(i reading went on was almost 
a misdemeanor. 

Dorinda Moody, Virginia Lee Patterson, Musidora Owen, 
Mea, and myself were classmates and cronies. My mother 
was reader that evening, and as she oi)ened the mag- 

85 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

azine at the frontispiece, Virginia Patterson and I called 
out: 

"Why, that is a picture of Miss Wilson!" 

We all leaned over the stand to look at the engraving, 
which my mother held up to general view. 

"It is like her!" she assented. 

The young lady across the table blushed brightly in 
uttering a laughing disclaimer, and my mother proceeded 
to explain the extreme improbability of our hypothesis. 
Then she read the story, which, to the other girls, settled 
the matter. It was called "Our Keziah," and began by 
telling that the title of the portrait was a misnomer. It 
was no "fancy sketch," but a Hkeness of "Om* Keziah." 

Silenced but not convinced, I restrained the impulse to 
tell my mates that stories might be made out of nothing. 
I knew it, and so did my only confidante, the handsome 
governess from Massachusetts, who had been installed in 
our school-room since June. 

Mr. Tayloe had gone back to the theological factory to 
prosecute the studies that were to fit him to proclaim the 
gospel of love and peace. On the last day of the session 
he had preached us a short sermon, seated in his chair at 
the head of the room, twirling the seal dangling from his 
watch-chain; his legs crossed, the left hand tucked be- 
tween them; his brows drawn together in the ugly horse- 
shoe we knew well and dreaded much. 

He must have descanted darkly upon the transitoriness 
of earthly joys and the hard road to heaven, for every 
girl in school was in tears except Mea and myself. 

As for my wicked self, as I privately confessed subse- 
quently to my father's young partner, "Thad" Ivey — 
"I could think of nothing but Franklin's grace over 
the whole barrel." In the ten months of his incumbency 
of the tutorship, the incipient divine had never so much 
as hinted to one of us that she had a soul. 

86 



OUR HANDSOME YANKEE GOVERNESS 

"I suppose I ought to say that it is hke returning thanks 
over the empty barrel," I subjoined, encouraged by my 
interlocutor's keen relish of the irreverent and impertinent 
comment upon the scene of the afternoon. "Thad" and I 
were great friends, and I had an idea that our views uyxyn 
this subject thtl not differ widely. 

Mrs. Willis D., our nearest neighbor, was with my 
mother, and when the tear-bedraggled procession from the 
school-room filed into the porch where the two friends were 
sitting with three other of the villagers, and Virginia Win- 
free threw hei-self into her aunt's arms with a strangled 
sob of: "Oh, Aunt Betty, he did preach 50 hard!" — the 
dry-eyed composiu'e of the Hawes girls was regarded with 
disfavor. 

"Your daugliters have so much fortitude!" remarked 
one, mopping her girl's eyes with a compassionate handker- 
chief. 

Another, "They show wonderful self-control for their 
age." 

Even our sensible mother was slightly scandalized by 
what she " hoped," deprecatingly, "was not want of 
feeling." 

Teai"s were fashionable, and came easily in those early 
times, and weeping in church was such a godly exercise 
that convei*sation or exhortation upon what was, in tech- 
nical phrase, "the subject of religion," brought tears as 
naturally as the wringing of a moist sponge, water. 

"What did you cry for?" demanded I, scornfully, of 
Anne Carus, when I got her away from the porch party. 
"You hate him as much as I do!" 

"Oh — I don't — know!" dubiously. "People always cry 
when anybody makes a farewell speech." 

So the Reverend-that-was-to-be Tayloe took his shadow 
from our door and his beak from out my heart. The quo- 
tation is not a mere figure of speech. 

87 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The handsome Yankee governess opened the door of a 
new life for me. Some of the parents complained that 
she "did not bring the children on as fast as Mr. Tayloe 
had done." Me, she inspired. I comprehended, as by a 
special revelation, that hard study might be a joy, and 
gain of knowledge raptm-e. With her I began Vose's 
Astronomy, Coziistock's Natural Philosophy, and Lyell's 
Elements of Geology, and revelled in them all. Her smile 
was my present reward, and when she offered to join me 
in my seemingly aimless rambles in the woods and "old 
fields," I felt honored as by a queen's favor. We sat to- 
gether upon mossy stumps and the banks of the brook 
I had until then called "a branch" in native Virginian 
dialect — talking! talking! talking! for houre, of nymphs, 
hamadryads, satyrs, and everything else in the world of 
imagination and nature. 

She wrote poetry, and she kept a diary; she had trav- 
elled in ten states of the Union, and lived in three different 
cities; and she never tired of answering questions as to 
what she had seen in her wanderings. Her nature was 
singularly sweet and sunny, and I never, in all the ten 
months of our intimacy, saw in language and deportment 
aught that was not refined and gentle. 

With her I began to write school "compositions." The 
"big girls" wrote them under the Tayloe regime — neat 
little essays upon "The Rose," "The Lily," "Morning," 
"Night," and all of the Four Seasons. Never a syllable 
had I lisped to one of them of the growing hoard of rhymes, 
tales, and sketches in the shabby, corpulent portfolio I 
had fashioned with my own fingers and kept in the bottom 
of a trunk under flannel skirts and last year's outgrown 
frocks. 

I brought them out of limbo to show to Miss Wilson, 
by timid degrees, andnew manuscripts as fast as they were 
written. She praised them, but not without discrimina- 



THE NASCENT AUTHOR 

tion. She suggested topics, and how to treat them. I 
never carried an imperfect lesson to her in class. Intellect 
and heart throve under her genial influence as frost- 
hindered buds under May sunshine. 

"The Fancy Sketch" was so like her it was natural I 
should refuse to believe the resemblance accidental. It 
was as plain as day to my apprehension that the unknown 
artist had seen her somewhere, and, uiLseen by her, had 
dogged her footsteps until he fixed her face in his mind's 
eye, then transferred it to canvas. 

It was a shock when the probability of his pursuit of 
her to Virginia, avowing his passion and being rewarded by 
the gift of her hand, was dissipated by the a})parition of 
a matter-of-fact pei-sonage, McPhail by name, who was 
neither poet nor artist. fl<^ had been betrothed to our 
governess for ever so long. He spent a fortnight at the 
" Old Tavern, " opposite our house, and claimed all of the 
waking hours she could spare from school duties. 

The finale of the romance was that she went back to the 
North at the end of her year's engagement with us, and 
married him, settling, we heard, in what sounded like an 
outlanilish region — Cape Neddick, on the Maine coast. 



IX 



A COLLEGE NEIGHBORHOOD — THE WORLD WIDENS — A BE- 
LOVED TUTOR — COLONIZATION DREAMS AND DISAP- 
POINTMENT — MAJOR MORTON 

"RiCEHiLL, February Sd, 1843. 
"Dear Dorinda, — I suppose mother has told you of our 
privileges and pleasant situation. I only want some of my 
friends to enjoy it with me to make me perfectly happy. Oh, 
how I wish you were here to go to the debating society with 
me and to hear the young men preach! I went to college 
last night to hear some speeches delivered by the Senior Class. 
They have questions given, and one takes one side and one 
another. The two best speeches were made on the ques- 
tion ' Is a love of fame more injurious than beneficial ?' One 
young man took the affirmative, and one the negative. They 
made the best speeches. Then the question was whether 
'the execution of Charles I. was just or not.' Both of these 
speakers needed prompting; that is, one of those who had 
spoken or was to speak took the speaker's speech which he had 
written off, and, if he forgot, set him right again. The young 
man who performed this office was very well qualified for it; 
he spoke in a low, distinct tone, and seemed to find no dif- 
ficulty in reading the writing. They speak again in about six 
weeks. But the chief enjoyments I have are the religious 
privileges. I can go to the prayer-meeting at the Seminary 
every Wednesday, and can hear three sermons every Sunday. 
Don't you wish you were here, too? Aunt Rice and sister went 
to the Court House last Sunday evening to hear Mr. Ballan- 
tine's lecture, and as they did not come back very soon the 
young men came in to supper. While sister and Aunt Rice 
were away I wrote an account of Mr. Hoge's and Mr. Howi- 

90 



A COLLEGE NEIGHBORHOOD 

son's sermons. Well, when Mr. Howison came in, 'Well, Miss 
Virginia, have you been by yourself all this evening?' 'Yes, 
sir.' 'Did you not feel ver}- lonely?' 'Not at all.' 'Why, 
what have you been doing?' 'I have been writing.' He 
paused, laughed, and then said, 'And what have you been 
writing?' And when I told him, I wish you could have seen 
him! He looked at me for a while as if he did not understand 
me, and then laughed heartily. He is very easy to laugh, but 
his mannere ai'e as different from Mr. Tayloe's as can be — 
but hush! what am I drawing comparisons for? I do not 
feel in the least restrained where he is, and can talk to him 
better than to any other gentleman here. Would not you 
like to have such a teacher? 

"Feb. 6th. — 1 wonder when father will come up; I have been 
looking for him every day for more than a week. ]\Ir. Nevius 
was here the other day. I inquired after you, but he had 
never seen you when he went to Mr. Miller's. I was quite 
disappointed, and 1 wish you would show yourself ne.xt time — 
that is, if you can. 

"I very often think of tiie times we ate roasted corn and 
turnips in the midst of the corn-field; don't you rememljer 
the evening when the supper-bell rang and we hid our corn 
among the leaves of the corn that was growing? I never 
knew how mucii I loved you or any of my friends until I was 
separated from them. Mr. Xevius brought a letter for sister 
from Anne Cams. She still writes in that desponding style 
you know she was so remarkable for in school, but I am glad 
to see from her letter that she has come to the conclusion to 
be contented with her lot, 

"I hope you do not indulge in such feelings, and, indeed, you 
have no reason to tlo so, for you are oidy si.\ miles from your 
mother and friends, and you are with your brother, and I 
think you will find a valuable friend in Malvina. How do 
you like your new teacher and situation? If you are ever 
home-sick, study hard and forget it 

"I have made many pleasant acquaintances here, and 
among them Mr. Tayloe's flame! I do not think they are en- 
gaged, but he goes there very frequently, and the students 

91 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

plague him half to death about her, and he never denies it. 
He boards here. She has a fair skin, blue eyes, and almost 
red hair, but she is very pretty 'for all that.' She is about 
seventeen. There is a little girl about my own age here, who 
takes your place in my affections while here; she is a grand- 
daughter of Professor Wilson, and lives in his house. Her 
name is Louisa Caruthers. I will speak to Lou about you, for 
you mwsf be acquainted. But a truce to this nonsense! Do 
not show this letter to any one of Mr. Miller's family, for I feel 
restrained if I think that my letters are to be shown to any 
except my particular friends. I will not show yours. Show 
this to mother, your mother, E. D., and V. Winfree. Give 
my respects to all Mr. M.'s family, take some of my best love 
for 5^ourself , and divide the rest among my friends. 

''Now farewell, do not forget me, and I will ever be 
"Your sincerely attached friend, 

"M. V. H." 

The foregoing priggish and stilted epistle begins the next 
chapter of my life-story. 

After Miss Wilson's departure, and divers unsuccessful 
attempts to obtain a successor to his liking, my father 
determined upon a bold departure from the beaten path 
of traditional and conventional usage in the matter of 
girls' education. 

The widow of Reverend Doctor Rice lived in the imme- 
diate neighborhood of Union Theological Seminary, founded 
by her husband, and of which he was the first president. 
The cluster of dwellings that had grown up aromid the 
two institutions of learning — Hampdcn-Sidney College and 
the School of Divinity — made, with the venerable "College 
Church," an educational centre for a connnunity noted for 
generations i)ast for intelligence and refinement. Prince 
Edward, Charlotte, and Halifax were closely adjacent 
counties peopled by what nobody then ridiculed as some 
of the "first families" of the state. Vcnables, Carring- 
tons, Reades, Bouldins, Watkinscs, Randolphs, Cabells, 

92 



A COLLEGE NEIGHBORHOOD 

MoitoiLS, Lacys — had boriK^ a conspicuous part in state, 
church, and social history. The region was aristocratic — 
and Presbyteiian. There was much wealth, for tolmcco 
was the most profitable crop of ('(nitral and Southern Vir- 
ginia, and the plantations bordering the Appomattox River 
were a mine of riches to the ownei-s. Stately mansions — 
most of tyliem antedating the Revolutionary War — crowned 
gently rolling hills rising beyond the; river, each, with its 
little village of domestic offices, great stables, tobacco- 
bams, and '^quartei's," making uj) an establishment that 
was feudal in character and in power. 

Every planter was college-bred antl a politician. 

The local atmosphere of "College Hill" was not unlike 
that of an Old World university town. The professors of 
the sister institutions of learning occupied houses in the 
vicinity of seminary and college, and the quaint church, 
the bricks mellowed to red-brown by time, stood eciui- 
distant from both. 

One feature of the church impressed my youthful imagi- 
nation. "Cousin Ben, " of Montrose — afterward the senior 
professor in the seminary, and as Rev. B. M. Smith, D.D., 
known throughout the Southern and Northern Presby- 
terian Church as a leader in learning and in doctrine — had, 
when a student of Hampden-Sidney, brought from Western 
Virginia a sprig of Scotch broom in his pocket. "The 
Valley" — now a part of West Virginia — was mainly settled 
by Scotch-Irish emigrants, and the broom was imported 
with their household stuff. The boy set the withered 
slip in the earth just inside of the gate of the church- 
yard. In twenty yeai"s it encompassed the walls with a 
setting of greenery, overran the enclosure, escaped under 
the fence, and raced rampant down the hill, growing tall 
and lash wherever it could get a foothold. In blossom- 
time the mantle of gold was visible a mile away. The smell 
of broom always brings back to me a \asion of that ugly 

93 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

(but dear) red-brown church and the goodly throng, pour- 
ing from doors and gate at the conclusion of the morning 
service, filling yard and road — well-dressed, well-born 
county folk, prosperous and hospitable, and so happily 
content with their lot and residence as to believe that 
no other people was so blessed of the Lord they served 
diligently and with godly fear. Without the church- 
yard were drawn up cumbrous family coaches, which 
conveyed dignified dames and dainty daughters to and 
from the sanctuary. Beyond these was a long line of 
saddle-horses waiting for their masters — blooded hunters 
for the young men, substantial cobs for their seniors. 
None except invalided men deigned to accept seats in 
carriages. 

As may be gathered from the formally familiar and ir- 
resistibly funny epistle, indited when I had been four 
months an insignificant actor in the scene I have sketched, 
"religious privileges" was no idle term then and there. 
Our social outings were what I have indicated. There were 
no concerts save the "Monthly Concert of Prayer for For- 
eign Missions" (held simultaneously in every church in the 
state and Union) ; not a theatre in Virginia, excepting one 
in Richmond, banned for the rehgious pubHc by the awful 
memories of the burning of the playhouse in 1811. "Din- 
ing-days," which their descendants name "dinner-parties," 
were numerous, and there was much junketing from one 
plantation to another, a ceaseless drifting back and forth 
of young people, overflowing, now this house, now that, al- 
ways certain of a glad welcome, and contriving, without 
the adventitious aid of cards or dancing, to lead joyous, 
full lives. 

Once a week the community turned out, en masse, for 
church-going. They were a devout folk — those F. F. V.'s, 
at which we mock now — and considered it a pubHc duty 
not to forsake the assembling of themselves together for 

94 



THE WORLD WIDENS 

worship, prayers, and sermons. These latter were intel- 
lectual, no less than s|)intual pabulimi. Oratoiy had not 
gone out of fashion in these United States, and in Virginia 
it was indigenous to the soil. Pulpit eloquence was in its 
glory, and speech-making at barbecues, annivei"saries, and 
political gatherings, in court-rooms and upon ''stiunps, " 
was an art learned by boys in roundabouts and practised 
as long as veterans could stand upon their shrunken calves. 

People flocked to church to attend reverently upon di- 
vine service, and, when the benediction was pronomiced, 
greeted friends and neighbors, cheerily chatting in the 
aisles and exchanging greetings between the benches they 
had occupied during the services — men and women sitting 
apart, as in the Quaker meeting-house — as freely as we now 
salute and stroll with acquaintances in the joijer of the 
opera-house. 

Such were some of the advantages and enjoyments in- 
cluded in the elastic phrase "religious privileges," vaunted 
by the ci)istolaiy twelve-year-old. 

''Rice Hill" was a commodioas dwelling, one mile from 
the seminary, and not quite so far from the college. Doctor 
Rice had literally spent and been spent in the work which 
had crowned his ministry — the foundation and endowTuent 
of a Southern School of Divinity. At his death, friends and 
admirei-s, North and South, agreed that a suitable monu- 
ment to him would be a home for the childless widow. She 
had a full corps of family servants, who had followed her 
to her various residences, and she eked out her income by 
supplying table-board to students from college and semi- 
nary. Thus much in explanation of the references to the 
coming in of "the gentlemen" in the "evening" — rural 
Virginian for afternoon. 

A kindly Providence had appointed unto us these pleas- 
ant paths at the impressionable period of our lives. The 
goodliest feature in that appointment was that Robert Reid 

95 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Howison, subsequently "LL.D.," and the author of a 
History of Virginia, and The Student's History of the United 
States, became the tutor of my sister and myself. 

He came to us at twelve o'clock each day, and we dined 
at half-past two. Hence, all our studying was done out of 
school-hours. The arrangement was eccentric in the ex- 
treme in the eyes of my father's acquaintances and critics. 
Other girls were in the class-room from nine until twelve, 
and after recess had a session of two hours more. That 
this, the most outre of "Mr. Hawes's experiments," would 
be a ludicrous failure was a foregone conclusion. Whereas, 
the cool brain had reckoned confidently upon the fidelity 
of the tutor and the conscientiousness of pupils accustomed 
to the discipline of a home where implicit obedience was 
the law. 

Never had learners a happier period of pupilage, and the 
cordial relations between teacher and students testified to 
the mutual desire to meet, each, the requirements of the 
other party to the compact. 

To the impetus given our minds by association with the 
genial scholar who directed our studies, was a,dded the stim- 
ulus of the table-talk that went on in our hearing daily. 
It was the informal, suggestive chat of men eager for 
knowledge, comparing notes and opinions, and discussing 
questions of deep import — historical' biological, and theo- 
logical. In the main, they were a bright set of fellows; in 
the main, likewise, gentlemen at heart and in bearing. It 
goes without saying that the exception in my mind to the 
latter clause was our late and hated tutor. I might write 
to Dorinda, in constrained good3^-goodyishness, of the im- 
propriety of "drawing comparisons" between him and 
Mr. Howison, whose "easy" laugh and winning personality 
wrought powerfully upon my childish fancy. At heart I 
loved the one and consistently detested the other. 

To this hour I recall the gratified thrill of conscious se- 

96 



A BELOVED TT'TOR 

curity and triumph that coursed through my minute being 
when, Mr. Tayloe having taken it ui)on himself to reprove 
me for something I said — pert, ])erhaps, but not otherwise 
offensive — Mr. Howison remarl^ed, with no show of tem- 
per, but firmly: 

"Mr. Tayloe, you will please recollect that tliLs young 
lady is now under 7ny care!" 

He laughed the next moment, as if to pass the matter 
off jjleasantly, but all three of us comprehended what was 
implied. 

We began French with our new tutor, and geometry! 
I cro.sscd the Pons Asinorum in January, and went on with 
Eucliil passably well, if not crcxlitably. Mathematics was 
never my strong point. The patience and perfect temper 
of the preceptor never failed him, no matter how far I 
came short of what he would have had me accomplish in 
that direction. 

"Educate them as if they were toys and preparing for 
college," my father had said, and he was obeyed. 

Beyond and above the benefit derived from the study 
of text-books was the education of daily contact witli a 
mind so richly stored with classic and modern literature, 
so keenly alive to all that was worthy in the natural, 
mental, and spiritual world as that of Robert Howison. 
He had been graduated at the University of \'irginia, and 
for a year or more had practised law in Richmond, resign- 
ing the profession to begin studies that would {prepare him 
for what h(> rated as a higlier calling. My debt to him is 
great, and inadequately acknowledged in these halting lines. 

Were I required to tell what period of my nonage had most 
to do with sha|)ing character and coloring nij- life, I should 
reply, without hesitation, "The nine months i)assed at Rice 
Hill." A new, boundless realm of thought and feeling was 
opened to the little provincial from a narrow, neutral- 
tinted neighlwrhood. I was a dreamer by nature and by 

«}7 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

habit, and my dreams took on a new complexion; a born 
story-maker, and a wealth of material was laid to my 
hand. We were a family of mad book-lovers, and the 
libraries of seminary and college were to my eyes twin 
Golcondas of illimitable possibilities. Up to now, novel- 
reading had been a questionable delight in which I hardly 
dared indulge freely. I was taught to abhor deceit and 
clandestine practices, and my father had grave scruples 
as to the wisdom of allowing young people to devour fic- 
tion. We might read magazines, as we might have con- 
fectionery, in limited supplies. A bound novel would be 
like a dinner of mince-pie and sweetmeats, breeding mental 
and moral indigestion. 

So, when Mr. Howison not only permitted, but advised 
the perusal of Scott's novels and poems, I fell upon them 
with joyful surprise that kindled into rapture as I became 
familiar with the Wizard and his work. We lived in the 
books we read then, discussing them at home and abroad, 
as we talk now of living issues and current topics. The 
Heart of Midlothian, Marmion, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, 
Peveril of the Peak, and Waverley were read that winter on 
stormy afternoons and during the long evenings that suc- 
ceeded the early supper. Sometimes Mr. Howison lingered 
when his comrades had gone back to their dormitories, 
and took his part in the fascinating entertainment. Usual- 
ly the group was composed of Aunt Rice, her sister (Mrs. 
Wharey, lately widowed, who was making arrangements 
to settle upon an adjoining plantation), Mrs. Wliarey's 
daughter, another "Cousin Mary," my sister, and myself. 

Aunt Rice was a "character" in her way and day; 
shrewd, kindly sympathetic, active in church and home, 
and with a marvellous repertoire of tale and anecdote that 
made her a most entertaining companion. "The Semi- 
nary" was her foster-child; the students had from her 
maternal interest and affection. Like other gentlewomen 

98 



COLONIZATION DREAMS 

of her time and latitude, she was well vereed in the English 
classics and in translations from the Latin and Greek. 
Pope, Swift, and Addison were hous(>hold favorites, and 
this winter she was reading with delight the just-published 
History of the Reformation, by Merle d'Aubigne. She al- 
ways wore black — merino in the morning, black silk or 
satin in the afternoon — and a regulation old lady's cap with 
ribbon strings tied under a double chin, and I think of her 
as always knitting lamb's-wool stockings. Hers was a 
pronounced individuality in every capacity she avSsumod 
to fill — mistress, housewife, neighbor, and general well- 
wisher. She never scolded, yet she managed the dozen or 
more servants that had come down to her by ordinary 
generation — seven of them men and boys — judiciously and 
well. Even then she was meditating a scheme she after- 
ward put into successful execution — namely, liberating all 
her slaves and sending them to Liberia. To this end she 
had taught them to read and write, and each boy was 
trained in some manual trade. She superintended their 
religious education as faithfully. Every Sunday night all 
the negroes who were beyond infancy assembled in the 
dining-room for Scripture readings expounded by her own 
pleasant voice, and for recitations in the Shorter Catechism 
and \'illage Hynm-book. They were what was called in the 
neighborhood vernacular, "a likely lot." The boys and 
men were clever workei"s in their several lines of labor. 
The women were skilled in the use of loom, spinning-wheel, 
and needle, and excellent cooks. One and all, they were 
made to undei'stand from babyhood what destiny awaited 
them so soon as they were equipped for the enterprise. 

I wish I could add that the result met her fond expecta- 
tions. While the design was inchoate, her example served 
as a stock and animating illustration of the wisdom of those 
who urged upon \'irginia slaveholders the duty of return- 
ing the blacks to the land from which their fathei"s were 
8 99 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

stolen. Colonization was boldly advocated in public and 
in private, and the old lady was a fervent convert. In the 
fulness of time she sent out five families, strong and 
healthy, as well-educated as the average Northern farmer 
and mechanic. She sold Rice Hill and well-nigh impov- 
erished herself in her old age to fit out the colony with 
clothes and household goods, and went to spend the few 
remaining years of her life in the home of her sister. The 
great labor of her dreams and hope accomplished, she 
chanted a happy ''Nunc Dimittis" to sympathizer and to 
doubter. She had solved the Dark Problem that baffled 
the world's most astute statesmen. If all who hearkened 
unto her would do likewise, the muttering of the hell that 
was already moving from its depth under the feet of the 
nation, would be silenced forever. 

The competent colonists had hardly had time to send 
back to their emancipated mistress news of their safe ar- 
rival in the Promised Land, when they found themselves 
in grievous straits. These, duly reported to Aunt Rice, 
were African fevers that exhausted their strength and con- 
sumed their stock of ready money; the difficulty of earn- 
ing a livelihood while they were ignorant of the language 
and customs of the natives; lack of suitable clothing; 
scarcity of provisions, and a waiting-list of etceteras that 
rent the tender heart of the benefactress with unavailing 
pity. She was importuned for money, for clothes, for 
groceries — even that she would, for the love of Heaven and 
the sake of old times, send them a barrel of rice — which, 
infidels to her faith in colonization did not fail to remind 
her, was to be had in Liberia for the raising. 

The stout-hearted liberator never owned in word her 
disappointment at the outcome of long years of patient 
preparation and personal privation, or gave any sign of 
appreciation of the truth that her grand solution of the 
Dark Problem was the song of the drunkard and a by-word 

100 



MAJOR MORTON 

and a hissing in the mouth of the unbehever. But she 
ceased long before her death, in 1858, to tax her Hsteners' 
patience by setting forth the beauties of colonization as 
the practical abolition of negro slavery in America. If 
her ancestors had sinned in bringing the race into bond- 
age, and her teeth were thereby set on edge, she hid her 
hurt. This significant silence was the only token by 
which her best friends divined her consciousness of the 
humiliating revelation which had fallen into the evening 
of a well-spent life. She had exchanged for the five families 
born and reared in her home, dependence, comfort, and 
happiness, for freedom, pauperism, and discontent. The 
cherished bud had been passing sweet. The fruit was as 
bitter as gall. 

At the time of which I am writing, the dream-bubble 
was at the brightest and biggest. She was in active corre- 
spondence with the officers of the Colonization Society; sub- 
scribed to and read colonization publications, and dealt out 
excerpts from the same to all who would listen; was busy, 
sanguine, and bright, beholding herself, in imagination, the 
leader in a crusade that would wipe the stain of slavery 
from her beloved state. 

One event of that wonderful winter was a visit paid to 
Aunt Rice by her aged father, Major James Morton, of High 
Hill, Cumberland County, the "Old Solid Column" of 
Revolutionary story. The anecdote of Lafayette's recog- 
nition of his former brother-in-arms was related in an 
earlier chapter. It was treasured in the family as a bit of 
choice silver would be prized. I had heard it once and 
again, and had constructed my own portrait of the stout- 
hearted and stout-bodied warrior. Surprise approximated 
dismay when I behold a withered, tremulous old man, en- 
feebled in mind almost to childishness, his voice breaking 
shrilly as he talked — a pitiable, crumbling wreck of the 
stately column. 

101 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

He had definite ideas upon certain subjects still, and 
was doughty in their defence. For example, during this 
visit to his daughter, he sat one evening in the chimney- 
corner, apparently dozing, while a party of young people 
were discussing the increasing facilities of travel by steam, 
and contrasting them with the slow methods of their 
fathers. The Major drowsed on, head sunken into his 
military stock, eyes closed, and jaw drooping— the imper- 
sonation of senile decay— when somebody spoke of a trip 
up the Hudson to West Point the preceding summer. 

The veteran raised himself as if he had been shaken by 
the shoulder. 

"That is not true!" he said, doggedly. 

"But, Major," returned the surprised narrator, "I did 
go! There is a regular line of steamers up the river." 

The old war-horse reared his head and beat the floor 
with an angry heel. 

"I say it is not true! It could not be true! General 
Washington had a big chain stretched across the river after 
Arnold tried to sell West Point, so that no vessel could get 
up to the fort. And, sir!" bringing his cane down upon 
the hearth with a resounding thump, his voice clear and 
resonant, "there is not that man upon earth who would 
dare take down that chain. Why, sir. General Washington 
put it there P' 

A fragment of the mighty chain, forged in the moun- 
tains of New Jersey, lies upon the parade-ground at West 
Point. 

Forty years thereafter I laid a caressing hand upon a 
huge link of the displaced boom, and told the anecdote to 
my twelve-year-old boy, adding, as if the stubborn loyalist 
had said it in my ear, 

"And there it stands until this day, 
To witness if I lie." 
102 



MAJOR MORTON 

We read Ivanhoe in the open air when the spring wore 
into summer. The afternoons were long, and when study- 
hours were over we were wont to repair to the roomy 
back-porch, shaded by vines, and looking across a little 
valley, at the bottom of which were a bubbling spring, a 
twisting brook, and a tiny pool as round as a moon, to the 
hill crowned by "Morton," a plain but spacious house 
occupied by the Wharey family. 

Not infrequently a seminary student, attracted by Mary 
Wharey's brunette comeliness and happy temper, would 
join our group and lend a voice in the reading. Moses 
Drury Hoge, a cousin of my mother and of Aunt Rice, was 
with us at least twice a week, basking in the summer heat 
like a true son of the tropics. He was a tutor in Hampden- 
Sidney while a divinity student, and, as was proved by his 
subsequent career, was the superior of his fellows in ora- 
torical gifts and other endowments that mark the youth 
for success from the beginning of the race. I think he was 
born sophisticated. Already his professors yielded him 
something that, while it was not homage in any sense of the 
word, yet singled him out as one whose marked individu- 
ality and brilliant talents gave him the right to speak with 
authority. At twenty-three, without other wealth than his 
astute brain and ready wits, his future was sure. 

He won in after years the title of "the Patrick Henry of 
the Southern Pulpit." 

Of him I shall have occasion to speak further as my 
story progresses. 



X 

FAMILY LETTERS — COMMENCEMENT AT HAMPDEN-SIDNEY — 
THEN AND NOW 

"Richmond, June \Qth, 1843. 
"My dear Wife, — After a fatiguing day it is with great 
pleasure I sit down to have a little chat with you, and to 
inform you of our progress. Were I disposed to give credit 
to lucky and unlucky days, a little incident occurred on our 
way down which would have disturbed me very much. We 
were going on at a reasonable rate when, to our surprise, the 
front of the 'splendid line of coach' assumed a strange position, 
and for a moment I thought we should be wrecked, but it was 
only minus a wheel — one of the front ones having taken leave 
of us and journeying, 'singly and alone,' on the other 
side of the turnpike. We were soon 'all right,' and arrived 
here in good health but much fatigued. Mother has hardly 
got rested yet, but thinks another quiet day will be sufficient, 
and that she will be ready to start on Monday morning and be 
able to hold out to go through without again stopping. We 
have passed over the most fatiguing part of our journey. We 
shall leave on Monday morning by the railroad, and, unless 
some accident should happen on the way, e«:pect to be in 
Boston on Wednesday about 9 o'clock a.m. It is my in- 
tention to keep on, unless mother should require rest, more 
than can be had on the line of travel. . . . Well, love, are you 
not tired of this overparticularity about business? I will not 
weary you any longer with it. I have never left home with a 
stronger feeling of regret than at the present time, and it 
appears that the older I get, the greater the trial to stay away. 
Now you will say that it is because you become more and 
more interesting. Well, it must be so, for I cannot dis- 

104 



FAMILY LETTERS 

cover any other cause. Do not let it be long before you 
write. 

"The heat, wind, and dust of the city to-day have put me 
entirely out of trim for writing, and my talent is but small 
even under the most favorable circumstances. By-the-bye, 
called on Mrs. D. last evening to deliver a message from Mr. 
D. Quite a pleasant ten minutes' affair, and was excused. 
Herbert must save some of those nice plants for that box 
to be placed on a pole, and tell him if he is a good boy we will 
try and have a nice affair for the little birds. My man must 
have a hand in the work, if it be only to look on, and Alice 
can do the talking part. Don't let Virginia take to her cham- 
ber. Keep her circulating about the house in all dry weather; 
the wind will not injure her, unless it be quite damp, at least 
so I think. 

^'Sunday, 11th. — Attended Doctor Plumer's church this 
morning, and heard a young man, the son of one of the pro- 
fessors at Princeton, preach. The sermon was good, but 
should have preferred the Doctor. Morning rainy and no 
one in from Olney. 

^^ Evening. — Attended Mr. Magoon's church. He preached 
from the words, 'Be not deceived, God is not mocked,' etc. 
A good, practical sermon ; he alluded to ministers and church 
members away from home, and shovmd them in many cases 
to be mockers of God, and instanced inconsistencies, all 
of which he termed 'mockery.' Expect -to-night to hear 
Doctor Plumer. Now, love, you have a full history up to the 
time of our departure. Write to me soon, and, after telling 
about yourself, the children, and servants, give me an account 
of store, farming, and gardening operations. Those large 
sheets will hold a great deal, if written very close. Kiss Alice 
and the baby for father. Tell Herbert and Horace that 
father wishes them to be good boys and learn fast. And now, 
dear Anna, I must bid you adieu, commending you and our 
dear ones to the care of Him whose mercies have been 
so largely bestowed on us in days past. May He pre- 
serve you from all evil and cause you to dwell in perfect 
peace." 

105 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The foregoing extracts from a letter written by my 
father during the (to us) "wonderful summer" of our 
sojourn in Prince Edward had to do with the periodical 
visit paid by my grandmother ti^ her Massachusetts home. 
I am deeply impressed in the perusal of these confidential 
epistles with the absolute dependence of the strong man — 
whom mere acquaintances rated as reserved to sternness, 
and singularly undemonstrative, even to his friends — upon 
the gentle woman who was, I truly believe^ the one and 
only love of his lifetime. He talked to her by tongue and 
by pen of every detail of business; she was the confidante 
of every plan, however immature; she, and she alone, 
fathomed the depths of a soul over which Puritan blood 
and training impelled him to cast a veil. In all this he 
had not a secret from her. Portions of the letter which I 
have omitted go into particulars of transactions that would 
interest few women. 

No matter how weary he was after a day of travel or 
work, he had always time to "talk it out" with his alter 
ego. The term has solemn force, thus applied. In the 
injunction to write of domestic, gardening, and farming 
affairs, he brings in "the store," now of goodly propor- 
tions and "departments," and into which she did not set 
foot once a week, and then as any other customer might. 
"Those large sheets will hold a great deal if written very 
close," he says, archly. They had evidently been pro- 
vided for this express purpose before he left home. 

One paragraph in the exscinded section of the letter be- 
longs to a day and system that have lapsed almost from 
the memory of the living. 

An infant of Mary Anne, my mother's maid, was ill with 
whooping-cough when the master took his journey north- 
ward. 

"I am quite anxious to hear how Edgar is," he writes. 
"I fear the case may prove fatal, and am inclined to blame 

106 



FAMILY LETTERS 

myself for leaving home before it was decided. Yet I 
know he is in good hands, and that you have done and 
will do everything necessary for his comfort. Also that, 
in the event of his death, all that is proper will be 
attended to. When I get home the funeral shall be 
preached, of which you will please inform his par- 
ents." 

No word of written or spoken comfort would do more to 
soothe the hearts of the bereaved parents than the assurance 
that the six-months-old baby should have his funeral ser- 
mon in good and regular order. The discourse was seldom 
preached at the time of interment. Weeks, and sometimes 
months, intervened before the friends and relatives could 
be convened with sufficient pomp and circumstance to 
satisfy the mourners. I have attended services embody- 
ing a long sermon, eulogistic of the deceased and admoni- 
tory of the living, when the poor mortal house of clay had 
mouldered in the grave for half a year. I actually knew 
of one funeral of a wife that was postponed by untoward 
circumstances until, when a sympathizing community was 
convoked to listen to the sermon, the ex-widower sat in 
the front seat as chief mourner with a second wife and 
her baby beside him. And the wife wore a black gown 
with black ribbon on her bonnet, out of respect to her 
predecessor ! 

They were whites, and church members in good and 
regular standing. 

Little Edgar died the day after my father took the train 
from Richmond for the fast run through to Boston — in two 
days and two nights! When the master got home after 
a month's absence, the funeral sermon was preached in old 
Petersville Church, three miles from the Court House, on a 
Sunday afternoon, and the parents and elder children were 
conveyed thither in the family carriage, driven by Spots- 
wood, who would now be the "coachman." Then he was 

107 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the "carriage-driver." They took time for everything 
then-a-days, and plenty of it. 

In September, Mea and I had the culmination of our 
experiences and "privileges" upon College Hill in the 
Hampden-Sidney Commencement. I had never attended 
one before. I have seen none since that were so grand, 
and none that thrilled me to the remotest fibre of my 
being as the exercises of that gloriously cloudless day. I 
hesitate to except even the supreme occasion when, from 
a box above the audience-floor packed with two thousand 
students and blazing with electric lights, I saw my 
tall son march with his class to receive his diploma 
from the president of a great university, and greeted him 
joyfully when, the ceremonial over, he brought it up to lay 
in my lap. 

There were but four graduates in that far-off little coun- 
try college with the hyphenated name and the honored 
history. It may be that their grandchildren will read the 
roll here: Robert Campbell Anderson, Thomas Brown 
Venable, Paul Carrington, and Mr. Rice, whose initials I 
think were "T. C." There were, I reiterate, but four 
graduates, but they took three honors. Robert Anderson 
was valedictorian; Mr. Rice of the uncertain initials had 
the philosophical oration; Tom Brown Venable had the 
Latin salutatory; and Paul Carrington, the one honorless 
man, made the most brilliant speech of them all. It was 
a way he had. The madcap of the college — who just "got 
through," as it were, by the skin of his teeth, by cramming 
night and day for two months to make up for an indefinite 
series of wretched recitations and numberless escapades 
out of class— he easily eclipsed his mates on that day of 
days. The boys used to say that he was "Saul," until 
he got up to declaim, or make an original address. Then 
he was "Paul." He was Pauline, par eminence, to-day. 

I could recite verbatim his lament over Byron's wasted 

108 



COMMENCEMENT AT HAMPDEN-SIDNEY 

powers, and I see, as if it were but yesterday that it thrilled 
me, the pose and passion of the outburst, arms tossed to 
heaven in the declamation: 

"O! had his harp been tuned to Zion's songs!" 

Music was "rendered" by an admirably trained choir. 
The hour of the brass-band had not come yet to Hampden- 
Sidney. And the choir rendered sacred music — such grand 
old anthems as, 



"Awake! awake! put on thy strength, O Zion! 
Put on thy beautiful garments"; 



and, 



"How beautiful upon the mountains 
Are the feet of him that publisheth salvation; 
That saith unto Zion, 
'Thy God reigneth!'" 

Doctor Maxwell was the president then, and was por- 
tentous in my eyes in his don's gown. 

Dear old Hampden-Sidney ! she has arisen, renewed in 
youth and vigor, from the cinders of semi-desolation, has 
cast aside the sackcloth and ashes of her grass-widowhood, 
and stepped into the ranks of modern progress. I like 
best to recall her when she maintained the prestige of her 
traditional honors and refused to accept decadence as a 
fixed fact. 



XI 



BACK IN POWHATAN — OLD VIRGINIA HOUSEWIFERY — A SING- 
ING-CLASS IN THE FORTIES — THE SIMPLE LIFE? 

My father's "ways" were so well known by his neighbors 
it was taken for granted that the education of his daugh- 
ters would not be conducted along conventional lines after 
we returned home. Mr, Howison had completed his theo- 
logical course in the seminary, and there were other plans 
on foot, known as yet to my parents alone, which made the 
engagement of another tutor inexpedient. 

It did not seem odd to us then, but I wonder now over 
the routine laid down by our father, and followed steadily 
by us during the next winter and summer. A room in the 
second story was fitted up as a "study" for the two girls. 
Each had her desk and her corner. Thither we repaired 
at 9 o'clock A.M. for five days of the week, and sat us 
down to work. When problem, French exercise, history, 
and rhetoric lessons were prepared, we gravely and duti- 
fully recited them to each other; wrote French exercises 
as carefully as if Mr. Howison's eye were to scan them; 
and each corrected that of her fellow to the best of her 
ability. We read history and essays upon divers topics 
aloud, and discussed them freely. The course of study 
was marked out for us by our beloved ex-tutor, who wrote 
to us from time to time, in the midst of other and engross- 
ing cares, in proof of continued remembrance and interest 
in his whilom pupils. 

We girls wrought faithfully and happily until one o'clock 

110 



BACK IN POWHATAN 

at our lessons. The rest of the day was our own, except 
afternoon hours which were passed with our mother, 
and in occupations directed by her. She had inherited 
from her mother taste and talent for dainty needlework, 
and, as all sewing was done by hand, her hands were always 
full, although her own maid was an expert seamstress. 
The Virginian matron of antebellum days never wielded 
broom or duster. She did not make beds or stand at 
wash-tub or ironing-table. Yet she was as busy in her 
line of housewifely duty as her "Yankee" sister. 

Provisions were bought by the large quantity, and kept 
in the spacious store-room, which was an important section 
of the dwelling. Every morning the cook was summoned 
as soon as breakfast was fairly over, appearing with a big 
wooden tray under her elbow, sundry empty "buckets" 
slung upon her arm, and often a pail on her head, car- 
ried there because every other available portion of her 
person was occupied. The two went together to the store- 
room, and materials for the daily food of white and black 
households were measured into the various vessels. The 
notable housewife knew to a fraction how much of the raw 
products went to the composition of each dish she or- 
dered. So much flour was required for a loaf of rolls, and 
so much for a dozen beaten biscuits; a stated quantity of 
butter was for cake or pudding; sugar was measured for 
the kitchen-table and for that at which the mistress would 
sit with her guests. Molasses was poured into one bucket, 
lard measured by the great spoonful into another; "bacon- 
middling" was cut off by the chunk for cooking with vege- 
tables and for the servants' eating; hams and shoulders 
were laid aside from the supply in the smoke-house, to 
which the pair presently repaired. Dried fruits in the 
winter, spices, vinegar — the scores of minor condiments 
and flavoring that were brought into daily use in the lavish 
provision for apjietites accustomed to the fat of the land — 

111 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

were "given out" as scrupulously as staples. If wine or 
brandy were to be used in sauces, the mistress would 
supply them later. It was not right, according to her 
code, to put temptation of that sort in the way of her de- 
pendants. It was certainly unsafe. Few colored women 
drank. I do not now recall a solitary instance of that 
kind in all my experience with, and observation of negro 
servants, before or after the war. I wish I could say the 
same for Scotch, Irish, and German cooks whom I have 
employed during a half-century of active housewifery. 

Negro men were notoriously weak in that direction. 
The most honest could not resist the sight and smell of 
liquor. The failing would seem to be racial. It is an es- 
tablished fact that when the solid reconstructed South 
"went dry" in certain elections, it was in the hope of 
keeping ardent spirits out of the way of the negroes. 

To return to our housekeeper of the mid-nineteenth cen- 
tury: The second stage in the daily round appointed to 
her by custom and necessity was to superintend the wash- 
ing of breakfast china, glass, and silver. In seven cases 
out of ten she did the work herself, or deputed it to her 
daughters. One of my earliest recollections is of standing 
by my mother as she washed the breakfast "things," and 
allowed me to polish the teaspoons with a tiny towel just 
the right size for my baby hands. 

Her own hands were very beautiful, as were her feet. 
To preserve her taper fingers from the hot water in which 
silver and glass were washed, she wore gloves, cutting off 
the tips of the fingers. The proper handling of "fragiles" 
was a fine art, and few colored servants arose to the right 
practice of it. I have in my memory the picture of one 
stately gentlewoman, serene of face and dignified of speech, 
who retained her seat at the table when the rest of us had 
finished breakfast. To her, then, in dramatic parlance, 
the butler, arrayed in long, white apron, sleeves rolled to 

112 



OLD VIRGINIA HOUSEWIFERY 

the elbow, bearing a pail of cedar-wood with bright brass 
hoops, three-quarters full of hot water. This he set down 
upon a small table brought into the room for the purpose, 
and proceeded to wash plates, cups, glass, silver, etc., col- 
lected from the board at which madam still presided, a bit 
of fancy knitting or crocheting in hand, which did not with- 
draw her eyes from vigilant attention to his movements. 

Like surveillance was exercised over each branch of 
housework. Every part of the establishment was visited 
by the mistress before she sat down to the sewing, which 
was her own especial task. Her daughters were instructed 
in the intricacies of backstitch, fell-seams, overcasting, 
hemstitching, herringbone, button-holes, rolled and flat 
hems, by the time they let down their frocks and put up 
their hair. The girl who had not made a set of chemises 
for herself before she reached her fourteenth birthday 
was accounted slow to learn what became a gentlewoman 
who expected to have a home of her own to manage some 
day. Until I was ten years old I knit my own stockings 
of fine, white cotton, soft as wool. Gentlemen of the old 
school refused to wear socks and stockings bought over a 
counter. In winter they had woollen, in summer cotton 
foot-gear, home-knit by wives or aunts or daughters. We 
embroidered our chemise bands and the ruffles of skirts, 
the undersleeves that came in with "Oriental sleeves," and 
the broad collars that accompanied them. 

Reading aloud more often went with the sewing-circle 
found in every home, than gossip. My father set his fine, 
strong face like a flint against neighborhood scandal and 
tittle-tattle. " 'They say' is next door to a lie," was one of 
the sententious sayings that silenced anecdotes dealing with 
village characters and doings. A more effectual quietus 
was: "Who says that? Never repeat a tale without giv- 
ing the author's name. That is the only honorable thing 
to do." 

113 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I do not know that the exclusion of chit-chat of our 
friends drove us to books for entertainment, when miles 
of seams and gussets and overcasting lay between us and 
springtime with its outdoor amusements and occupations. I 
do say that we did not pine for evening "functions," for 
luncheons and matinees, when we had plenty of books to 
read aloud and congenial companions with whom to dis- 
cuss what we read. Once a week we had a singing-class, 
which met around our dining-table. My father led this, 
giving the key with his tuning-fork, and now and then 
accompanying with his flute a hymn in which his tenor 
was not needed. 

Have I ever spoken of the singular fact that he had "no 
ear for music," yet sang tunefully and with absolute ac- 
curacy, with the notes before him? He could not carry the 
simplest air without the music-book. It was a clear case 
of a lack of co-ordination between ear and brain. He was 
passionately fond of music, and sang well in spite of it, 
playing the flute correctly and with taste — always by note. 
Take away the printed or written page, and he was all at 
sea. 

Those songful evenings were the one dissipation of the 
week. A singing-master, the leader of a Richmond choir, 
had had a school at the Court House the winter before, and 
The Boston Academy was in every house in the village. 
I could run glibly over the names of the regular attendants 
on the Tuesday evenings devoted to our musicale. George 
Moody, my father's good-looking ward, now seventeen, 
and already in love up to his ears with Effie D., my es- 
pecial crony, who was a month my junior; Thaddeus 
Ivey, a big blond of the true Saxon type, my father's 
partner, and engaged to be married to a pretty Lynchburg 
girl; James Ivey, a clerk in the employ of Hawes & Ivey 
—nice and quiet and gentlemanly, and in love with nobody 
that we knew of — these were the bassos. Once in a while, 

114 



A SINGING-CLASS IN THE FORTIES 

"Cousin Joe," who was busily engaged in a seven years' 
courtship of a fair villager, Effie's sister, joined us and bore 
our souls and voices aloft with the sonorous " brum ! brum !" 
of a voice at once rich and well-trained. There were five 
sopranos — we called it "the treble" then — and two women 
sang "the second treble." One weak - voiced neighbor 
helped my father out with the tenor. Until a year or two 
before the singing-master invaded the country, women sang 
tenor, and the alto was known as "counter," 

The twentieth century has not quite repudiated the 
tunes we delighted in on those winter nights, when 

*'The fire, with hickory logs supplied, '- 
Went roaring up the chimney wide," 

and we lined both sides of the long table, lighted by tall 
sperm-oil lamps, and bent seriously happy faces over The 
Boston Academy, singing with the spirit and, to the best 
of our ability, with the understanding — "Lanesboro' " and 
"Cambridge" and "Hebron" and "Boyleston" and "Zion," 
and learning, with puckered brows and steadfast eyes 
glued to the notes, such new tunes as "Yarmouth," 
"Anvern," and "Zerah." 

"Sing at it!" my father would command in heartsome 
tones, from his stand at the top of the double line. "You 
will never learn it if you do not make the first trial." 

I arose to my feet the other day with the rest of the con- 
gregation of a fashionable church for a hymn which "every- 
body" was enjoined from the pulpit to "sing." 

When the choir burst forth with 

"Triumphant Zion! Lift thy head!" 

I dropped my head upon my hands and sobbed. Were 
the words ever sung to any other tune than "Anvern," 
I wonder? 

9 115 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

In the interval of singing we chatted, laughed, and were 
happy. How proud all of us girls were, on one stormy 
night when the gathering was smaller than usual, and good- 
looking George — coloring to his ears, but resolute — sang 
the bass solo in the fourth line of "Cambridge": 

"Resound their Maker's praise!" 

The rest caught the words from his tongue and carried the 
tune to a conclusion. 

We sang until ten o'clock; then apples, nuts, and cakes 
were brought in, and sometimes sweet cider. An hour 
later we had the house to ourselves, and knelt for evening 
prayer's about the fire before going to bed. 

It was an easy-going existence, that of the well-to-do 
Virginia countryman of that date. If there were already 
elements at work below the surface that were to heave the 
fair level into smoking ruin, the rank and file of the men 
who made, and who obeyed the laws, did not suspect it. 

Grumblers there were, and political debates that ran 
high and hot, but the Commonwealth that had supphed 
the United States with statesmen and leaders since the 
Constitution was framed, had no fear of a dissolution of 
what was, to the apprehension of those now at the helm, 
the natural order of things. 



XII 

ELECTION DAY AND A DEMOCRATIC BARBECUE 

The time of the singing of birds and the departure of 
winter came suddenly that year. Hyacinths were aglow 
in my mother's front yard early in February, and the 
orchards were aflame with "the fiery blossoms of the 
peach." The earth awoke from sleep with a bound, and 
human creatures thrilled, as at the presage of great events. 

It was the year of the presidential election and a cam- 
paign of extraordinary importance. My father talked to 
me of what invested it with this importance as we walked 
together down the street one morning when the smell of 
open flowers and budding foliage was sweet in our nostrils. 

A Democratic barbecue was to be held in a field on the 
outskirts of the village just beyond "Jordan's Creek." 
The stream took its name from the man whose plantation 
bounded it on the west. The widening and deepening 
into a pool at the foot of his garden made it memorable in 
the Baptist Church, 

I do not believe there was a negro communicant in any 
other denomination throughout the length of the county. 
And their favorite baptizing-place was "Jordan's Creek." 
I never knew why, until my mother's maid — a bright 
mulatto, with a smart cross of Indian blood in her veins — 
"got through," after mighty strivings on her part, and on 
the part of the faithful of her own class and complexion, 
and confided to me her complacency in the thought that 
she was now safe for time and eternity. 

117 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

"For, you see, John the Babtis', he babtized in the River 
Jerdan, and Brother Watkins, he babtized me in the Creek 
Jerdan. I s'pose they must be some kin to one another?" 

My father laughed and then sighed over the story, when 
I told it as we set out on our walk. The religious beliefs 
and superstitions of the colored servants were respected 
by their owners to a degree those who know little of the 
system as it prevailed at that time, find it hard to believe. 
From babyhood we were taught never to speak disrespect- 
fully of the Baptists, or of the vagaries that passed with 
the negroes for revealed truth. They had a right to their 
creeds as truly as we had to ours. 

This younger generation is also incredulous with respect 
to another fact connected with our domestic relations. 
Children were trained in respectful speech to elderly ser- 
vants — indeed, to all who were grown men and women. 
My mother made me apologize once to this same maid — 
Mary Anne by name — for telling her to " Hush her mouth !" 
the old Virginian form of "Hold your tongue!" 

The blessed woman explained the cause of her reproof 
when the maid was out of hearing: 

"The expression is unladylike and coarse. Then, again, 
it is mean — despicably mean ! — to be saucy to one who has 
no right to answer in the same way. If you must be sharp 
in your talk, quarrel with your equals, not with servants, 
who cannot meet you on your own ground." 

The admonition has stuck fast in my mind to this day. 

By the time we turned the corner in the direction of 
Jordan's Creek, my father and I were deep in politics. 
He was the stanchest of Whigs, and the ancient and hon- 
orable party had for leader, in this year's fight, one whom 
my instructor held to be the wisest statesman and purest 
patriot in the land. The ticket, " Clay and Frelinghuysen," 
was a beloved household word with us; talk of the tariff, 
protection and the national debt, which Henry Clay's 

118 



ELECTION DAY 

policy would wipe out, and forever, if opportunity were 
granted to him, ran as glibly from our childish tongues 
as dissertations upon the Catholic bill and parliamentary 
action thereupon dropped from the lips of the Bronte boy 
and girls. There was not a shadow of doubt in our minds 
as to the result of the November fight. 

"It seems a pity " — I observed, as we looked across the 
creek down into the distant meadow, where men and boys 
were moving to and fro, and smoke was rising from fires 
that had been kindled overnight — "that the Democrats 
should go to so much expense and trouble only to be de- 
feated at last." 

"They may not be so sure as you are that they are work- 
ing for nothing," answered my father, smiling good-humor- 
edly. "They have had some victories to boast of in the 
past." 

"Yes!" I assented, reluctantly. "As, for instance, 
when Colonel Hopkins was sent to the Legislature ! Father, 
I wish you had agreed to go when they begged you to let 
them elect you!" 

The smile was now a laugh. 

"To nominate me, you mean. A very different matter 
from election, my daughter. Not that I cared for either. 
If I may be instrumental in the hands of Providence in 
helping to put the right man into the right place, my 
political ambitions will be satisfied." 

"I do hope that Powhatan will go for Clay!" ejaculated 
I, fervently. "And I think it an outrage that the Rich- 
mond voters cannot come up to the help of the right, at 
the presidential election." 

"The law holds that the real strength of the several 
states would not be properly represented if this were al- 
lowed," was the reply. 

I saw the justice of the law later in life. Then it was 
oppressive, to my imagination. 

119 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

That most doubtful blessing of enlightened freemen — 
universal suffrage — had not as yet been thrust upon the 
voters of the United States. In Virginia, the man who 
held the franchise must not only be "free, white, and 
twenty-one," but he must be a land-owner to the amount 
of at least twenty-five dollars. Any free white of the 
masculine gender owning twenty-five dollars' worth of 
real estate in any county had a vote there. If he owned 
lands of like value in ten counties, he might deposit a vote 
in each of them, if he could reach them all between sunrise 
and sunset on Election Day. It was esteemed a duty by 
the Richmond voter— the city being overwhelmingly Whig 
— to distribute his influence among doubtful counties in 
which he was a property-holder. He held and believed 
for certain that he had a right to protect his interests 
wherever they might lie. 

Powhatan was a doubtful factor in the addition of 
election returns. Witness the election to the Legislature 
at different periods of such Democrats as Major Jacob 
Michaux — from a James River plantation held by his grand- 
father by a royal grant since the Huguenots sought refuge 
in Virginia from French persecutors — and of the Colonel 
Hopkins whom I had named. This last was personally 
popular, a man of pleasing address and fair oratorical 
powers, and represented an influential neighborhood in 
the centre of the county. A most worthy gentleman, as 
I now know. Then I classed him with Jesuits and tyrants. 
I had overheard a sanguine Democrat declare in the heat 
of political argument that ''Henry L. Hopkins would be 
President of the United States some day." To which my 
father retorted, "When that day comes I shall cross the 
ocean and swear allegiance to Queen Victoria." 

When I repeated the direful threat to my mother, she 
laughed and bade me give myself no uneasiness on the 
subject, as nothing was more unlikely than that Colonel 

120 



ELECTION DAY 

Hopkins would ever go to the White House. Neverthe- 
less, I always associated that amiable and courtly gentle- 
man with our probable expatriation. 

Election Day was ever an event of moment with us chil- 
dren. From the time when I was tall enough to peep over 
the vine-draped garden-fence — until I was reckoned too big 
to stand and stare in so public a place, and was allowed 
to join the seniors who watched the street from behind 
the blinds and between the sprays of the climbing roses 
shading the front windows — it was my delight to inspect 
and pronounce upon the groups that filled the highway 
all day long. Children are violent partisans, and we sepa- 
rated the sheep from the goats — id est, the Whigs from 
the Democrats — as soon as the horsemen became visible 
through the floating yellow dust of the roads running from 
each end of the street back into the country. One neigh- 
borhood in the lower end of the county, bordering upon 
Chesterfield, was familiarly known as the ''Yellow Jacket 
region." It took its name, according to popular belief, 
from the butternut and nankeen stuffs that were worn by 
men and women. The term had a sinister meaning to us, 
although it was sufficiently explained by the costume of 
the voters, who seldom appeared at the Court House in 
force except upon Election Day. They arrived early in 
the forenoon — a straggling procession of sad-faced citizens, 
or so we fancied — saying little to one another, and looking 
neither to the left nor the right as their sorrel nags paced 
up the middle of the wide, irregularly built street. I did 
not understand then, nor do I now, their preference for 
sorrel horses. Certain it is that there were four of that 
depressing hue to one black, bay, or gray. So badly 
groomed were the poor beasts, and so baggy were the 
nankeen trousers of the men who bestrode them, that a 
second look was needed to detennine where the rider ended 
and the steed began. We noted, with disdainful glee, that 

121 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the Yellow Jacket folk turned the corner of the crossway 
flanking our garden, and so around the back of the public 
square enclosing Court House, clerk's office, and jail. There 
they tethered the sorry beasts to the fence, shook down a 
peck or so of oats from bags they had fastened behind their 
saddles, and shambled into the square to be lost in the 
gathering crowd. 

As they rode through the village, ill - mannered boys 
chanted: 

"Democrats — 

They eat rats! 

But Whigs 

Eat pigs!" 

Bacon being a product for which the state was famed, the 
distinction was invidious to the last degree. My mother 
never let us take up the scandalous doggerel. She said it 
was vulgar, untrue, and unkind. It was not her fault that 
each of us had the private belief that there was a spice of 
truth in it. 

When we saw a smart tilbury, drawn by a pair of glossy 
horses, stop before the "Bell Tavern" opposite our house, 
the occupants spring to the ground and leave the equipage 
to the hostlers — who rushed from the stables at sound of 
the clanging bell pulled by the landlord as soon as he 
caught sight of the carriage — we said in unison: 

"They are Whigs!" 

We were as positive as to the politics of the men who 
rode blooded hunters and wore broadcloth and tall, shining 
hats. The Yellow Jacket head-gear was drab in color, 
uncertain in shape. 

It seemed monstrous to our intolerant youth that "poor 
white folksy" men should have an equal right with gentle- 
men, born and bred, in deciding who should represent the 
county in the Legislature and the district in Congress. 

122 



ELECTION DAY 

The crowning excitement of the occasion was reserved 
for the afternoon. As early as three o'clock I was used to 
see my father come out of the door of his counting-room 
over the way, watch in hand, and look down the Richmond 
road. Presently he would be joined there by one, two, 
or three others, and they compared timepieces, looking up 
at the westering sun, their faces graver and gestures more 
energetic as the minutes sped by. The junta of women 
sympathizers behind the vine-curtains began to speculate 
as to the possibility of accident to man, beast, or carriage, 
and we children inquired, anxiously, "What would happen 
if the Richmond voters did not come, after all?" 

"No fear of that!" we were assured, our mother add- 
ing, with modest pride, "Your father has attended to the 
matter." 

They always came. Generally the cloud of distant dust, 
looming high and fast upon the wooded horizon, was the 
first signal of the reinforcements for the Whig party. 
Through this we soon made out a train of ten or twelve 
carriages, and perhaps as many horsemen — a triumphal 
cortege that rolled and caracoled up the street amid the 
cheers of expectant fellow-voters and of impartial urchins, 
glad of any chance to hurrah for anybody. The most im- 
portant figure to me in the scene was my father, as with 
feigned composure he walked slowly to the head of the 
front steps, and lifted his hat in courteous acknowledgment 
of the hands and hats waved to him from carriage and sad- 
dle-bow. If I thought of Alexander, Napoleon, and Wash- 
ington, I am not ashamed to recollect it now. 

That child has been defrauded who has not had a hero 
in his own home. 

I was at no loss to know who mine was, on this bland 
spring morning, as my father and I leaned on a fence on 
the hither side of the creek and watched the proceedings 
of the cooks and managers about the at fresco kitchen. 

123 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

''Too many cooks spoil the dinner!" quoth I, as negroes 
bustled from fire to fire, and white men yelled their orders 
and counter-orders. "Not that it matters much what kind 
of victuals are served at a Democratic barbecue, so long as 
there is plenty to drink." 

"Easy, easy, daughter!" smiled my auditor. "There 
are good men and true in the other party. We are in 
danger of forgetting that." 

"None as good and great as Mr. Clay, father?" 

He raised his hat slightly and involuntarily. "I do not 
think he Has his equal as man and pure patriot in this, or 
any other country. God defend the right!" 

"You are not afraid lest Polk" — drawling the mono- 
syllable in derision — "will beat him, father?" 

The smile was a laugh — happily confident. 

"Hardly ! I have more faith in human nature and in the 
common-sense of the American people than to think that 
they will pass over glorious Harry of the West, and forget 
his distinguished services to the nation, to set in the presi- 
dential chair an obscure demagogue who has done nothing. 
Wouldn't you like to go down there and see half an ox 
roasted, and a whole sheep?" 

We crossed the stream upon a shaking plank laid from 
bank to bank, and strolled down the slope to the scene of 
operations. An immense kettle was swung over a fire of 
logs that were so many living coals. The smell of Bruns- 
wick stew had been wafted to us while we leaned on the 
fence. A young man, who had the reputation of being an 
epicure, to the best of his knowledge and ability, superin- 
tended the manufacture of the famous delicacy. 

"Two dozen chickens went into it!" he assured us. 
"They wanted to make me think it couldn't be made with- 
out green corn and fresh tomatoes. I knew a trick worth 
two of that. I have worked it before with dried tomatoes 
and dried sweet corn soaked overnight." 

124 



A DEMOCRATIC BARBECUE 

He smacked his lips and winked fatuously. 

"I've great confidence in your culinary skill," was the 
good-natui'ed rejoinder. 

I recollected that I had heard my father say of this 
very youth: 

"I am never hard upon a fellow who is a fool because he 
can't help it!" But I wondered at his gentleness when the 
epicure prattled on: 

"Yes, sir! a stew like this is fit for Democrats to 
eat. I wouldn't give a Whig so much as a smell of the 
pot!" 

"You ought to have a tighter lid, then," with the same 
good-humored intonation, and we passed on to see the 
roasts. Shallow pits, six or seven feet long and four feet 
wide, were half filled with clear coals of hard hickory 
billets. Iron bars were laid across these, gridiron-like, and 
half-bullocks and whole sheep were cooking over the 
scarlet embers. There were six pits, each with its roast. 
The spot for the speakers' rostrum and the seats of the 
audience was well-selected. A deep spring welled up in a 
grove of maples. The fallen red blossoms carpeted the 
ground, and the young leaves supplied grateful shade. 
The meadows sloped gradually toward the spring; rude 
benches of what we called "puncheon logs" — that is, the 
trunks of trees hewed in half, and the flat sides laid upper- 
most—were ranged in the form of an amphitheatre. 

"You have a fine day for the meeting," observed my 
father to the master of ceremonies, a planter from the 
Genito neighborhood, who greeted the visitors cordially. 

"Yes, sir! The Lord is on our side, and no mistake!" 
returned the other, emphatically. "Don't you see that 
yourself, Mr. Hawes!" 

"I should not venture to base my faith upon the weath- 
er," his eyes twinkling while he affected gravity, "for we 
read that He sends His rain and sunshine upon the evil 

125 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and the good. Good-morning! I hope the affair will be 
as pleasant as the day." 

Our father took his family into confidence more freely 
than any other man I ever knew. We were taught not to 
prattle to outsiders of what was said and done at home. 
At ten years of age I was used to hearing affairs of personal 
and business moment canvassed by my parents and my 
father's partner, who had been an inmate of our house 
from his eighteenth year — intensely interested to the ut- 
most of my comprehension and drawing my own conclu- 
sions privately, yet understanding all the while that what- 
ever I heard and thought was not to be spoken of to 
schoolmate or visitor. 

It was not unusual for my father to confide to me in 
our early morning rides — for he was my riding-master — 
some scheme he was considering pertaining to church, 
school, or purchase, talking of it as to an equal in age and 
intelligence. I hearkened eagerly, and was flattered and 
honored by the distinction thus conferred. He never 
charged me not to divulge what was committed to me. 
Once or twice he had added, "I know I am safe in telling 
you this." After which the thumb-screw could not have 
extracted a syllable of the communication from me. 

It was during one of these morning rides that he un- 
folded a plan suggested, as he told me, by our visit to the 
Democratic barbecue-ground some weeks before. 

We had to rise betimes to secure a ride of tolerable length 
before the wannth of the spring and summer days made 
the exercise fatiguing and unpleasant. A glass of milk 
and a biscuit were brought to me while I was dressing in 
the gray dawn, and I would join my escort at the front 
gate, where stood the hostler with both horses, while the 
east was yet but faintly colored by the unseen sun. 

We were pacing quietly along a plantation road five 
miles from the Court House, and I was dreamily enjoying 

126 



A DEMOCRATIC BARBECUE 

the fresh taste of the dew-laden air upon my lips, and in- 
haling the scent of the wild thyme and sheep-mint, bruised 
by the horses' hoofs, when my companion, who, I had seen, 
had been in a brown study for the last mile, began with : 

"I have been thinking — " The sure prelude to some- 
thing worth hearing, or so I believed then. 

A Whig rally was meditated. He had consulted with 
three of his friends as to the scheme born of his brain, and 
there would be a meeting of perhaps a dozen leading men 
of the party in his counting-room that afternoon. The 
affair was not to be spoken of until date and details were 
settled. My heart swelled with pride in him, and in my- 
self as his chosen confidante, as he went on. The recol- 
lection of the scenes succeeding the barbecue was fresh 
in our minds, and the memory sharpened the contrast be- 
tween the methods of the rival parties. 

I was brimful of excitement when I got home, and the 
various novelties of the impending event in the history of 
county politics and village life were the staple of neigh- 
borhood talk for the weeks dividing that morning ride 
from the mid-May day of the "rally," 

That was what they called it, for it was not to be a bar- 
becue, although a collation would be served in the grounds 
surrounding the Grove Hotel, situated in the centre of the 
hamlet, and separated from the public square by one 
street. The meeting and the speaking would be in the 
grove at the rear of the Court House. Seats were to be 
arranged among the trees. It was at my father's instance 
and his expense that the benches would be covered with 
white cotton cloth — "muslin, " in Northern parlance. This 
was in special compHment to the "ladies who, it was 
hoped, would compose a great part of the audience." 

This was the chiefest innovation of all that set tongues 
to wagging in three counties. The wives and mothers 
and daughters of voters were cordially invited by placards 

127 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

strewed broadcast through the length and breadth of 
Powhatan. The hke had never been heard of within the 
memory of the oldest inhabitant. It was universally felt 
that the step practically guaranteed the county for Clay 
and Frelinghuysen. 



XIII 

A WHIG RALLY AND MUSTER DAY 

The day dawned heavenly fair, and waxed gloriously 
bright by the time the preparations for the reception of 
the guests were completed. The dust had been laid by 
an all-day rain forty-eight hours before. Every blade of 
grass and the leaves, which rustled joyously overhead, 
shone as if newly varnished. At ten o'clock all the sitting- 
space was occupied, three-fourths of the assembly being of 
the fairer sex. Half an hour later there was not standing- 
room within the sound of the orators' voices. A better- 
dressed, better-mannered crowd never graced a political 
"occasion." All were in summer gala attire, and all were 
seated without confusion. My father, as chairman of the 
committee of arrangements, had provided for every stage 
of the proceeding. It was by a motion, made by him and 
carried by acclamation, that Captain Miller, "a citizen of 
credit and renown," was called to preside. 

As if it had happened last week, I can, in fancy, see each 
feature of this, the most stupendous function that had 
ever entered my young life. I suppose there may have 
been five hundred people present. I would have said, un- 
hesitatingly, "five thousand," if asked to make the com- 
putation. I wore, for the first time, a sheer lawn frock — 
the longest I had ever had, but, as my riiother explained 
to the village dressmaker — Miss Judy Cardozo — "Virginia 
is growing so fast, we would better have it rather long to 
begin with." I secretly rejoiced in the sweep of the full 

129 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

skirt down to my heels, as giving me a young-ladylike 
appearance. "Thad" Ivey, always kind to me, and not 
less jolly because he was soon to be a married man, meet- 
ing me on the way up the street, declared that I had 
"really a ball-room air/' My hair was "done" in two 
braids and tied with white ribbon figured with pale-purple 
and green flowers. Sprigs of the same color decorated the 
white ground of my lawn. I carried a white fan, and I sat, 
with great delight, between my mother and Cousin Mary. 

"'And bright 
The sun shone o'er fair women and brave men,' " 

murmured a gallant Whig to the row of women behind us. 

"Isn't that strange!" whispered I to Cousin Mary; 
"those lines have been running in my mind ever since we 
came." 

Not strange, as I now know. Everybody read and 
quoted "Childe Harold" at that period, and I may add, 
took liberties with the text of favorite poems to suit them 
to the occasion. 

When the round of applause that greeted the appear- 
ance of Captain Miller upon the platform subsided, every- 
thing grew suddenly so still that I heard the leaves rustling 
over our heads. His was not an imposing presence, but 
he had a stainless reputation as a legislator and a Whig, 
and was highly respected as a man. He began in exactly 
these words: 

" Ladies and gentlemen — fellow-citizens, all ! — it behooves 
us, always and everywhere, before entering upon the prose- 
cution of any important enterprise, to invoke the presence 
and blessing of Almighty God. We will, therefore, be now 
led in prayer by the Reverend Mr. Cams." 

My uncle-in-law "offered" a tedious petition, too long- 
winded to please the average politician perhaps, but it 
was generally felt that a younger man and newer resident 

130 



A WHIG RALLY 

could not have been called upon without incivility verg- 
ing upon disrespect to a venerable citizen. The invocation 
over, the presiding officer announced that "the Whigs, 
in obedience to the spirit of fair play to all, and injustice 
to none, that had ever characterized the party, would to- 
day grant to their honored opponents, the Democrats, the 
opportunity of replying publicly to the arguments ad- 
vanced in the addresses of those representing the principles 
in the interest of which the present assembly had been 
convened. The first speaker of the day would be the Hon. 
Holden Rhodes, of Richmond. The second would be one 
almost as well known to the citizens of county and state — 
the Hon. John Winston Jones, of Chesterfield. The Whigs 
reserved to themselves the last and closing address of the 
day by the Hon. Watkins Leigh, of Richmond." 

Nothing could be fairer and more courteous, it seemed 
to me. In the hum of approval that rippled through the 
assembly it was apparent that others held the like senti- 
ment. Likewise, that the *' Honorable Chairman'' had 
scored another point for the magnanimous Whigs, But 
then — as I whispered to my indulgent neighbor on the 
left — they could afford to surrender an advantage or two 
to the party they were going to whip out of existence. 

Holden Rhodes was an eminent lawyer, and his speech 
was a trifle too professional in sustained and unoratorical 
argument for my taste and mental reach. I recall it 
chiefly because of a comical interruption that enlivened 
the hour-long exposition of party creeds. 

I have drawn in my book, Judith, a full-length portrait 
of one of the men of marked individuahty who made 
Powhatan celebrated in the history of a state remarkable 
in every period for strongly defined public characters. In 
Judith I named this man "Captain Macon." In real fife 
he was Capt. John Cocke, a scion of a good old family, a 
planter of abundant means, and the father of sons who 
10 131 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

were already beginning to take the place in the public 
eye he had held for fifty years. He was tall and gaunt, his 
once lofty head slightly bowed by years and — it was 
hinted — by high living. He had been handsome, and his 
glance was still piercing, his bearing distinguished. I ever 
cherished, as I might value a rare antique, the incident of 
his introduction to that stalwart dame, my New England 
grandmother, who had now been a member of our fam- 
ily for three years. 

We were on our way home after service at Fine Creek, 
and the carriage had stopped at a wayside spring to water 
the horses. Captain Cocke stood by the spring, his bridle 
rein thrown over his arm while his horse stooped to the 
"branch" flowing across the highway. Expecting to see 
my mother in the carriage, he took off his hat and ap- 
proached the window. 

"This is my mother, Captain," said my father, raising 
his voice slightly, as he then named the new-comer to her 
deaf ears. 

The old cavalier bowed low, his hand upon his heart: 
"Madam, I am the friend of your son. I can say nothing 
more to a mother!" 

The fine courtesy, the graceful deference to age, the in- 
stant adaptation of manner and words to the circum- 
stances, have set the episode aside in my heart as a gem 
of its kind. 

He wore on that Sunday, and he wore on every other 
day the year around, a scarlet hunting-coat. I wonder if 
there were more eccentrics in Virginia in that generation 
than are to be met with there — or anywhere else — nowa- 
days ? Certain it is that nobody thought of inquiring why 
Captain Cocke, whose ancestors had served under Wash- 
ington and Lafayette in the war for freedom, chose to sport 
the British livery. We had ceased to remark upon it by 
the time I write of. When strangers expressed wonder- 

132 



A WHIG RALLY 

ment at the queer garb, we had a resentful impression of 
officiousness, 

Mr. Rhodes, with the rest of his party, was thoroughly 
dissatisfied with the policy (or want of policy) of John 
Tyler, who had been called to the presidential chair by the 
untimely death of Gen. W. H. Harrison. In the progress 
of his review of national affairs, he came to this name when 
he had spoken half an horn' or so. 

Whereupon uprose the majestic figure clad in scarlet, 
from his seat a few feet away from the platform. The 
Captain straightened his bent shoulders and lifted lean 
arms and quivering fingers toward heaven. The red tan 
of his weather-beaten cheeks was a dusky crimson. 

"The Lord have mercy upon the nation!" he cried, his 
voice solemn with wrath, and sonorous with the potency 
of the mint-juleps for which "The Bell" was noted. "Fel- 
low-citizens ! I always cry to High Heaven for mercy upon 
this country when John Tyler's name is mentioned ! Amen 
and amen!" 

He had a hearty round of applause mingled with echoes 
of his "amens" and much good-humored laughter. They 
all knew and loved the Captain. I felt the blood rush to 
my face, and I saw others glance aromid reprovingly when 
a city girl who sat behind me, and carried on a whis- 
pered flirtation with a fopling at her side during Mr. 
Rhodes's speech, drawled: 

"WTiat voice from the tombs is that?" 

Mrs. James Saunders, nee Mary Cocke, was my mother's 
right-hand neighbor. With perfect temper and an agree- 
able smile, she looked over her shoulder into the babyish 
face of the cockney guest — ■ 

"That is my Uncle John," she uttered, courteously. 

Whereat all within hearing smiled, and the young wom- 
an had the grace to blush. 

Mr. Rhodes was speaking again, and the audience was 

133 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

respectfully attentive. The orator made clever use of 
the Captain's interruption. The manner of it offended 
nobody. John Tyler was, perhaps, the most unpopular 
man in the Union at that particular time. The Democrats 
had no use for him, and he had disappointed his own party. 
When the smoke and dust of political skirmishing cleared 
away, Virginians did something like justice to his motives 
and his talents. Twenty years thereafter, my early pre- 
possessions, engendered by the vituperative eloquence of 
the Clay campaign, were corrected by a quiet remark made 
by my father to a man who spoke slightingly of the ex- 
President : 

"The man who chose the cabinet that served during 
Tyler's administration was neither fool nor traitor," 

John Winston Jones demohshed the fair fabric Mr. 
Rhodes had spent so much time and labor in constructing 
that I began to yawn before the lively Democrat woke me 
up. I recollect that he was pungent and funny, and that 
I was interested, despite his sacrilegious treatment of what 
I regarded as sacred themes. 

It was a telling point when he drew deliberately a wicked- 
looking jack-knife from his breeches pocket, opened it as 
deliberately, and, turning toward Mr. Rhodes, who sat at 
his left, said: 

"If I were to plunge this into the bosom of my friend and 
respected opponent (and I beg to assure him that I shall 
not hurt a hair of his head, now or ever!), would I be re- 
garded as his benefactor? Yet that is what General Jack- 
son did to the system of bank monopolies," etc. 

I did not follow him further. For a startled second I 
had really thought we were to have a "scene." I had 
heard that Democrats were bloodthirsty by nature, and 
that sanguinary outbreaks attended political demonstra- 
tions and cataracts of bad whiskey. 

It goes without saying that the Hon. Watkins Leigh — 

134 



A WHIG RALLY 

a distinguished member of the Richmond bar, famous for 
legal acumen and forensic oratory — made quick and 
thorough work in the destruction of Mr. Jones's building, 
and sent the Whigs home with what I heard my mother 
describe as "a good taste in their mouths." 

The orations were interspersed with "patriotic songs." 
A quartette of young men, picked out by the committee 
of arrangements, for their fine voices and stanch Whiggery, 
stood on the platform and sang the body of the ballads. 
The choruses were shouted, with more force and good- will 
than tunefulness, by masculine voters of all ages and 
qualities of tone. 

Doctor Henning, an able physician, and as eccentric in 
his way as Captain Cocke in his, stood near my father, his 
back against a tree, his mouth wide, and all the volume of 
sound he could pump from his lungs pouring skyward in 
the refrain of 

"Get out of the way, you're all unlucky; 
Clear the track for Old Kentucky!" — 

when his eye fell upon a young man, who, having no more 
ear or voice than the worthy Galen himself, contented him- 
self with listening. As the quartette began the next verse, 
the Doctor collared "Abe" Cardozo (whom, by the way, 
he had assisted to bring into the world), and actually shook 
him in the energy of his patriotism — 

"Abraham James! why don't you sing?" 

"Me, Doctor?" stammered the young fellow, who prob- 
ably had not heard his middle name in ten years before 
— "I never sang a note in my life!" 

"Then begin now!" commanded the Doctor, setting the 
example as the chorus began anew. 

How my father laughed! backing out of sight of the 
pair, and doubling himself up in the enjoyment of the 
scene, real bright tears rolling down his cheeks. I heard 

135 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

him rehearse the incident twenty times in after-years, and 
always with keen delight. For the Doctor was a scholar 
and a dreamer, as well as a skilful practitioner, renowned 
for his horticultural and ornithological successes, and so 
taciturn and absent-minded that he seldom took part in 
general conversation. That he should have been drawn 
out of his shell to the extent of roaring out ungrammatical 
doggerel in a public assembly of his fellow-citizens, was a 
powerful proof of the tremendous force of party enthusiasm. 
The incongruity of the whole affair appealed to my father's 
ever-active sense of humor. He would wind up the story 
by asserting that "it would have made Jeremiah chuckle 
if he had known both of the actors in the by-play," 

One specimen of the ballads that flooded the land in 
the fateful 1844 will give some idea of the tenor of all: 

Tune: "Ole Dan Tucker" 
"The moon was shining silver bright, the stars with glory 
crowned the night. 
High on a limb that 'same okl Coon' was singing to him- 
self this tune: 

Chorus 
"Get out of the way, you're all unlucky; clear the track 
for Ole Kentucky! 

"Now in a sad predicament the Lokies are for Pi-esident; 
They have six horses in the pasture, and don't know which 
can run the faster. 

"The Wagon-Horse from Pennsylvany, the Dutchmen think 
he's the best of any; 
But he must drag in heavy stages his Federal notions and 
low wages. 

"They proudly bring upon the course an old and broken- 
down war-horse; 
They shout and sing: 'Oh! rumpsey dumsey, Colonel John- 
son killed Tecumsey!' 

136 



A WHIG RALLY 

"And here is Cass, though not a dunce, will run both sides 
of the track at once; 
To win the race will all things copy, be sometimes pig and 
Sometimes puppy. 

"The fiery Southern horse, Calhoun, who hates a Fox and 
fears a Coon, 
To toe the scratch will not be able, for Matty keeps him in 
the stable. 

"And here is Matty, never idle, a tricky horse that slips his 
bridle; 
In forty-four we'll show him soon the little Fox can't fool 
the Coon. 

"The balky horse they call John Tyler, we'll head him soon 
or burst his boiler; 
His cursed 'grippe' has seized us all, which Doctor Clay 
will cure next fall. 

"The people's fav'rite, Henry Clay, is now the 'fashion' of 
the day; 
And let the track be dry or mucky, we'll stake our pile on 
Ole Kentucky. 

"Get out of the way, he's swift and lucky; clear the track 
for Ole Kentucky!" 

(The chorus of each preceding verse is, "Get out of the 
way, you're all unlucky," etc. The "Fox" is Martin Van 
Buren, or "Matty." The "Coon" is Clay. The "Wagon- 
Horse from Pcnnsylvany" is James Buchanan.) 

Another ballad, sung that day under the trees at the 
back of the Court House, began after this wise: 

"What has caused this great commotion 
Our ranks betray? 
It is the ball a-rolling on 
To clear the way 
For Harry Clay. 
1.37 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

And with him we'll beat your Polk! Polk! Polk! 

And his motley crew of folk, 

O! with him we'll beat your Polk." 

To my excited imagination it was simple fact, not a 
flight of fancy, that Powhatan should be alluded to that 
day as "your historic county — a mere wave in the vast 
Union — 

"That ever shall be 
Divided as billows, yet one as the sea." 

"A wave, fellow-citizens, that has caught the irresistible 
impulse of wind and tide bearing us on to the most glori- 
ous victory America has ever seen." 

Ah's me! That was how both parties talked and felt 
with regard to the Union seventeen years before the very 
name became odious to those who had been ready to die 
in defence of it. 

I cannot dismiss the subject of public functions in the 
"historic county" without devoting a few pages to the 
annual Muster Day. It was preceded by five days of 
"officers' training." The manoeuvres of the latter body 
were carried on in the public square, and, as one end of our 
house overlooked this, no lessons were studied or recited 
between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on those 
days. The sophisticated twentieth-century youngling will 
smile contemptuously at hearing that, up to this time, I 
had never heard a brass-band. But I knew all about 
martial music. Already there was laid away in the fat 
portfolio nobody except myself ever opened, a story in 
ten parts, in which the hero's voice was compared to "the 
thrilling strains of martial music." 

I boiled the tale down four years thereafter, and it was 

printed. It had a career. But "that is another story." 

I used to sit with my "white work," or a bit of knitting, 

138 



MUSTER DAY 

in hand, at that end window, looking across the side-street 
down upon the square, watching the backing and filhng, 
the prancing and the halting of the eight "officers" drilled 
in military tactics by Colonel Hopkins, the strains of the 
drum and fife in my ears, and dream out war-stories by the 
dozen. 

The thumping and the squealing of drum and fife set my 
pulses to dancing as the finest orchestra has never made 
them leap since that day when fancy was more real and 
earnest than what the bodily senses took in. 

By Saturday the officers had learned their lesson well 
enough to take their respective stands before (and aft, as 
we shall see) the larger body of free and independent Ameri- 
can citizens who were not "muster free," hence who must 
study the noble art of war. 

They came from every quarter of the county. The Fine 
Creek and Genito neighborhoods gave up their quota, 
and Deep Creek, Red Lane, and Yellow Jacket country 
kept not back. It was a motley and most democratic line 
that stretched from the main street to that flanking the 
public square. Butternut and broadcloth rubbed elbows; 
planter and overseer were shoulder to shoulder. "Free, 
white, and twenty-one" had the additional qualification 
of "under forty-five." Past that, the citizen of these free 
and enlightened United States lays down the burden of 
peaceable military muster. 

Besides those worn by the officers, there was not a uni- 
form on duty that Saturday, Here and there one might 
descry the glitter of a gun-barrel. Walking-canes and, 
with the Yellow Jacket contingent, corn-stalks, simulated 
muskets in the exercises dictated by Colonel Hopkins, who 
was to-day at his best. I employ the word "dictated" 
with intention. He had to tell the recruits (surely the 
rawest ever drawn up in line) exactly what each order 
meant. To prevent the swaying array from leaning back 

139 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

against the fence, three officers were detailed to skirmish 
behind the long row and shove delinquents into place. 
The Colonel instructed them how to hold their ''arms," 
patiently; in the simplest colloquial phrase, informed them 
what each was to do when ordered to "shoulder arms," 
"right dress," "mark time," and the rest of the techni- 
calities confusing to ears unlearned, and which, heard by 
the veteran but once in a twelve-month, could not be 
familiar even after ten or fifteen years of "service." 

Both the windows commanding the parade-ground were 
filled on Muster Day. My mother and our grown-up 
cousins enjoyed the humors of the situation almost as 
much as we girls, who let nothing escape our eager eyes. 
Especially do I recall the shout of laughter we drew away 
from our outlook to stifle, when the suave commanding 
officer, mindful of the dull comprehension and crass igno- 
rance of a large proportion of his corps, directed them in a 
clear voice — whose courteous intonations never varied under 
provocations that would have thrown some men into 
paroxysms of mirth, and moved many to profanity — to 
"look straight forward, hold the chin level, and let the 
hands hang down, keeping thumbs upon the seam of 
the pantaloons." More technical terms would have been 
thrown away. Twenty warriors (prospective) brought both 
hands forward and laid their thumbs, side by side, upon 
the central seams of their pantaloons! Merriment, that 
threatened to be like the "inextinguishable laughter" 
of Olympian deities, followed the grave anxieties of the 
officials in rear and front of the mixed multitude to hinder 
those at the extreme ends of the line from bending for- 
ward to watch the manoeuvres of comrades who occu- 
pied the centre of the field. In spite of hurryings to and fro 
and up and down the ranks, it chanced, half a dozen times 
an hour, that what should have been a straight line became 
a curve. Then the gallant, indomitable Colonel would 

140 



MUSTER DAY 

walk majestically from end to end, and with the flat of 
his naked sword repair the damage done to discipline — 

"Just like a boy rattling a stick along the palings!" 
gasped Cousin Mary, choking with mirth. 

The simile was apt. 

Some staid citizens, tenacious of dignity and susceptible 
to ridicule, seldom appeared upon the parade-ground, pre- 
ferring to pay the fine exacted for the omission. Others — 
and not a few — contended that some familiarity with mili- 
tary manoeuvres was essential to the mental outfit of every 
man who would be willing to serve his country in the field 
if necessary. This sentiment moved sundry of the younger 
men to the formation, that same year (if I mistake not), of 
the "Powhatan Troop." 

One incident connected with the birth of an organiza- 
tion that still exists, in name, fixed it in my mind. Cousin 
Joe — the hero of my childish days — was mainly instru- 
mental in getting up the company, and brought the written 
form of constitution and by-laws to my father's house, 
where he dined on the Court Day which marked the first 
parade. Our kinsman, Moses Drury Hoge, came with him. 
He prided himself, among a great many other things, upon 
being phenomenally far-sighted. To test this he asked 
Cousin Joe to hold the paper against the wall on the op- 
posite side of the room, and read it aloud slowly and cor- 
rectly from his seat, twenty feet away. 

The scene came back to me as it was photographed on 
my mind that day, when I read, ten years ago, in a Rich- 
mond paper, of the prospective celebration of the forma- 
tion of the " Powhatan Troop." I was more than four hun- 
dred miles away, and fifty-odd yeare separated me from the 
"historic county" and the Court House where the banquet 
was to be given. I let the paper drop and closed my eyes. 
I was back in the big, square room on the first floor of 
the long, low, rambling house on the village street. My 

141 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

favorite cousin, tall and handsome, held the paper above 
his head, smiling in indulgent amusement at the young 
kinsman of whom he was ever fond and proud. My father 
stood in the doorway, watching the progress of the test. 
My mother had let her sewing fall to her lap while she 
looked on. The scent of roses from the garden that was 
the joy of my mother's heart, stole in through open doors 
and windows. The well - modulated tones, that were to 
ring musically in church and hall on both sides of the 
sea, and for more than a half-century to come, read the 
formal agreement, of which I recalled, in part, the preamble: 

"We, the undersigned, citizens of the County of Powhatan, 
in the State of Virginia." 

While the glamour of that moment of ecstatic reminis- 
cence wrought within me, I seized my pen and wrote a 
telegram of congratulation to the revellers, seated, as I 
reckoned, at that very hour, about the banqueting-board. 
I addressed the despatch to Judge Thomas Miller, the grand- 
son of the chairman on the day of the Whig rally. By a 
remarkable and happy coincidence, for which I had hard- 
ly dared to hope, the telegram, sent from a country station 
in New Jersey, flew straight and fast to the obscure hamlet 
nearly five hundred miles off, and was handed to Judge 
Miller at the head of the table while the feast was in full 
flow. He read it aloud, and the health of the writer was 
drunk amid such applause as my wildest fancy could not 
have foreseen in the All-So-Long-Ago when my horizon, 
all rose-color and gold, was bounded by the confines of 
"Our County." 



XIV 



RUMORS OF CHANGES — A CORN-SHUCKING — NEGRO TOPICAL 

SONG 

My mother's love for Richmond was but second to that 
she felt for husband and children. It was evident to us in 
after-years that her longing to return to her early home 
wrought steadily, if silently, upon my father's mind and 
shaped his plans. 

These plans were definitively made and announced to us 
by the early autumn of 1844. Uncle Carus had removed 
to the city with his family late in the summer. My sister 
and I were to be sent to a new school just established in 
Richmond, and recommended to our parents by Moses 
Hoge, who was now assistant pastor in the First Presby- 
terian Church, and had full charge of a branch of the same, 
built farther up-town than the Old First founded by Dr. 
John H. Rice. We girls were to live with the Caruses that 
winter. In the spring the rest of the family would follow, 
and, thenceforward, our home would be in Richmond. 

A momentous change, and one that was to alter the 
complexion of all our lives. Yet it was so gradually and 
quietly effected that we were not conscious of so much as 
a jar in the machinery of our existence. 

I heard my mother say, and more than once, in after- 
years, crowded with incident and with cares of which we 
never dreamed in those eventless months: 

"I was never quite contented to live anywhere out of 
Richmond, yet I often asked myself during the seven years 

143 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

we spent in Powhatan if they were not the most care- 
free I should ever have. I know, now, that they were." 

My father gave a fervent assent when he heard this. 
To him the sojourn was prosperous throughout. Energy, 
integrity, pubhc spirit, intelHgence, and, under the ex- 
terior chance acquaintances thought stern, the truest 
heart that ever throbbed with love to God and love to 
man, had won for him the esteem and friendship of the 
best men in the county. Steadily he mounted, by the force 
of native worth, to the magistrate's bench, and was a recog- 
nized factor in local and in state politics. He had estab- 
lished a flourishing Sunday-school in the "Fine Creek 
neighborhood," where none had ever existed until he made 
this the nucleus of a church. He was the confidential ad- 
viser of the embarrassed planter and the struggling me- 
chanic, and lent a helping hand to both. He was President 
of a debating society, in which he was, I think, the only 
man who was not a college graduate. 

His business had succeeded far beyond his expectations. 
Except that the increase of means moved him to larger 
charities, there was no change in our manner of life. We 
had always been above the pinch of penury, living as well 
as our neighbors, and, so far as the younger members of 
the family knew, as well as any reasonable people need 
desire to live. We had our carriage and horses, my sister 
and I a riding-horse apiece, abundance of delicacies for 
the table, and new clothes of excellent quality whenever 
we wanted them. 

The ambitions and glories of the world beyond our 
limited sphere came to our ken as matter of entertain- 
ment, not as provocatives to discontent. 

Two nights before we left home for our city school, the 
Harvest Home — "corn-shucking" — was held. It was al- 
ways great fun to us younglings to witness the "show." 
With no premonition that I should never assist at another 

144 



A CORN-SHUCKING 

similar function, I went into the kitchen late in the after- 
noon, and, as had been my office ever since I was eight 
years old, superintended the setting of the supper-table for 
our servants and their expected guests. I was Mammy 
Ritta's special pet, and she put in a petition that I would 
stand by her now, in terms I could not have resisted if I 
had been as averse to the task as I was glad to perform it : 

"Is you goin' to be sech a town young lady that you 
won't jes' step out and show us how to set de table, honey?" 
could have but one answer. 

A boiled ham had the place of honor at one end of the 
board, built out with loose planks to stretch from the 
yawning fireplace, bounding the lower end of the big kitchen, 
to Mammy's room at the other. My mother had lent table- 
cloth and crockery to meet the demands of the company. 
She had, of course, furnished the provisions loading the 
planks. A shoulder balanced the ham, and side-dishes of 
sausage, chine, spareribs, fried chicken, huge piles of corn 
and wheat bread, mince and potato pies, and several 
varieties of preserves, would fill every spare foot of cloth 
when the hot things were in place. Floral decorations of 
feasts would not come into vogue for another decade and 
more, but I threw the sable corps of workers into ecstasies 
of delighted wonder by instructing Spotswood, Gilbert, 
and a stableman to tack branches of pine and cedar along 
the smoke-browned rafters and stack them in the cor-, 
ners. 

"Mos' as nice as bein' in de woods!" ejaculated the 
laundress, with an audible and long-drawn sniff, parodying, 
in unconscious anticipation, Yomig John Chivery's — "I feel 
as if I was in groves !" 

It was nine o'clock before the ostensible business of the 
evening began. Boards, covered with straw, were the base 
of the mighty pyramid of corn in the open space between 
the kitchen-yard and the stables. Straw was strewed 

145 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

about the heap to a distance of twenty or thirty feet, and 
here the men of the party assembled, sitting flat on the 
padded earth. The evening was bland and the moon was 
at the full. About the doors of kitchen and laundry flut- 
tered the dusky belles who had accompanied the shuckers, 
and who would sit down to supper with them. Their 
presence was the inspiration of certain "topical songs," as 
we would name them — sometimes saucy, oftener flattering. 
As dear Doctor Primrose hath it, "There was not much 
wit, but there was a great deal of laughter, and that did 
nearly as well." 

This was what Mea and I whispered to each other in our 
outlook at the window of our room that gave directly 
upon the lively scene. We had sat in the same place for 
seven successive corn-shuckings, as we reminded ourselves, 
sighing reminiscently. 

The top of the heap of corn was taken by the biggest 
man present and the best singer. From his eminence he 
tossed down the hooded ears to the waiting hands that 
caught them as they hurtled through the air, and stripped 
them in a twinkling. As he tossed, he sang, the others 
catching up the chorus with a will. Hands and voices kept 
perfect time. 

■ One famous corn-shuckers' song was encored vocifer- 
ously. It ran, in part, thus: 

"My cow Maria 
She fell in de fire. 

Chorus 
"Go de corn! Go de corn! 

"I tell my man Dick 
To pull 'er out quick. 
(Go de corn!) 
146 



NEGRO TOPICAL SONG 

"And Dick he said, 
'Dis cow done dade!' 
(Go de corn!)" 

(Being of an economic turn of mind, the owner of de- 
ceased Maria proceeded to make disposition of her several 
members :) 

"I made her hide over 
For a wagon-cover. 
(Go de corn!) 

"I cut her hoof up 
For a drinkin' cup. 
(Go de corn!) 

"Her tail I strip' 
Fur a wagon-whip, 
(Go de corn!) 

"Her ribs hoi' op 
Dat wagon top. 

(Go de corn!)" 

And so on until, as Mea murmured, under cover of the 
uproarious "Go de corn!" repeated over and over and 
over, with growing might of lung — "Maria was worth twice 
as much dead as alive." 

We had had our first nap when the chatter of the supper- 
party, saying their farewells to hosts and companions, 
awoke us. We tumbled out of bed and flew to the win- 
dow. The moon was as bright as day, the dark figures 
bustling between us and the heaps of shucks and the 
mounds of corn, gleaming like gold in the moonlight, re- 
minded us of nimble ants scampering about their hills. 
The supper had evidently been eminently satisfactory. We 
could smell hot coffee and sausage still. Fine phrases, im- 

11 147 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

possible to any but a negro's brain and tongue, flew fast 
and gayly. The girls giggled and gurgled in palpable imi- 
tation of damsels of fairer skins and higher degree. 

Hampton — the spruce carriage-driver (as coachmen were 
named then) of Mr. Spencer D., Effie's father — bowed 
himself almost double right under our window in worship- 
ful obeisance to a bright mulatto in a blazing red frock. 

"Is all de ladies ockerpied wid gentlemen?" he called, 
perfunctorily, over his shoulder. And, ingratiatingly di- 
rect to the coy belle who pretended not to see his approach, 
"Miss Archer! is you ockerpied?" 

Miss Archer tittered and writhed coquettishly. 

''Well, Mr. D.! I can't jes' say that I is!" 

"Then, jes' hook on hyar, won't you?" crooking a per- 
suasive elbow. 



XV 



the country girls at a city school — velvet hats and 
clay's defeat 

Our father took us to Richmond the first of October. 
A stage ran between Cumberland Court House and 
the city, going down one day and coming up the next, 
taking in Powhatan wayside stations and one or more in 
Chesterfield. 

We rarely used the public conveyance. This important 
journey was made in our own carriage. A rack at the 
back contained two trunks. Other luggage had gone down 
by the stage. We had dinner at a half-way house of enter- 
tainment, leaving home at 9 o'clock a.m., and coming in 
sight of the town at five in the afternoon. 

That night I was lulled to sleep for the first time by 
what was to be forevermore associated in my thoughts 
with the fair City of Seven Hills — the song of the river- 
rapids. It is a song — never a moan. Men have come and 
men may go; the pleasant places endeared by history, 
tradition, and memory may be, and have been, laid waste; 
the holy and beautiful houses in which our fathers wor- 
shipped have been burned with fire, the bridges spanning 
the rolling river have been broken down, and others have 
arisen in their place; but one thing has remained as un- 
changed as the heavens reflected in the broad breast of 
the stream — that is the sweet and solemn anthem, dear 
to the heart of one who has lived long within the sound of 
it, as the song of the surf to the homesick exile who asked 
in the Vale of Tempe, "Where is the sea!" 

149 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

We were duly entered in the school conducted by Mrs. 
Nottingham and her four daughters in an irregularly built 
frame-house — painted "colonial yellow" — which stood at 
the corner of Fifth and Franklin Streets. It was pulled 
down long ago to make room for a stately brick residence, 
built and occupied by my brother Horace. 

The school was Presbyterian, through and through. Mr. 
Hoge had a Bible-class there every Monday morning; the 
Nottingham family, including boarders, attended Sunday 
and week-day services in the chapel, a block farther down 
Fifth Street. The eloquent curate of the Old First was 
rising fast into prominence in city and church. His chapel 
was crowded to the doors on Sunday afternoons when 
there was no service in the mother-church, and filled in the 
forenoon with the colony which, it was settled, should 
form itself into a corporate and independent body within 
a few months. 

It spoke well for the drill we had had from our late 
tutor, and said something for the obedient spirit in which 
we had followed the hne of study indicated by him, that 
Mea and I were, after the preliminary examination, classed 
with girls older than ourselves, and who had been regular 
attendants upon boarding and day schools of note. If we 
were surprised at this, having anticipated a different re- 
sult from the comparison of a desultory home-education in 
the country, with the "finish" of city methods, we were the 
more amazed at the manners of our present associates. 
They were, without exception, the offspring of refined and 
well-to-do parents. The daughters of distinguished clergy- 
men, of eminent jurists, of governors and congressmen, of 
wealthy merchants and rich James River planters, were 
our classmates in school sessions and our companions 
when lessons were over. It was our initial experience in 
the arrogant democracy of the "Institution." 

Be it day-school, boarding-school, or college, the story 

150 



COUNTRY GIRLS AT A CITY SCHOOL 

of this experience is the same the world over. The frank 
brutahty of question and comment; the violent and reason- 
less partisanships; the irrational intimacies, and the short 
lives of these; the combinations against lawful authority; 
the deceptions and evasions to screen offenders from the 
consequences of indolence or disobedience — were but a few 
of the revelations made to the two country girls in the 
trial-months of that winter. 

I had my first shock in the course of an examination 
upon ancient history conducted by the second and gen- 
tlest of the Nottingham sisters — Miss Sarah. I was un- 
affectedly diffident in the presence of girls who were so 
much more fashionably attired than we in our brown 
merino frocks made by "Miss Judy," and trimmed with 
velvet of a darker shade, that I felt more ill at ease than 
my innate pride would let me show. But I kept my eyes 
upon the kind face of the catechist, and answered in my 
turn distinctly, if low, trying with all my might to think 
of nothing but the subject in hand. I observed that Mea 
did the same. I was always sure of her scholarship, and 
I tingled with pride at her composure and the refined in- 
tonations that rendered replies invariably correct. Hon- 
estly, I had thought far more of her than of myself, when, 
after a question from Miss Sarah revealed the fact that 
I had read Plutarch's Lives, a tall girl next to me dug her 
elbow into my ribs: 

"Law, child! you think yourself so smart!" 

She was the daughter of one of the eminent professional 
men I have alluded to, and three years my senior. I knew 
her father by reputation, and had been immensely im- 
pressed with a sense of the honor of being seated beside 
her in the class. 

"Miss Blank!" said Miss Sarah, as stern as she could 
ever be. "I am surprised!" 

The girl giggled. So did a dozen others. My cheeks 

151 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

flamed hotly, and my temper followed suit. I made up 
my mind, then and there, never to hke that "creature." 
I have seen the like misbehavior in college girls who 
took the highest honors. 

Prof. Brander Matthews, of Columbia University, once 
said to a class in English literature, of which my son 
was a member: 

"I could go through all of my classes and pick out, with 
unerring certainty, the young men who belong to what may 
be called 'reading families.' Nothing in the college cur- 
riculum ever takes the place in education of a refined early 
environment and intellectual atmosphere." 

I am inclined to adapt the wise utterance to the cultiva- 
tion of what we class, awkwardly, under the head of " man- 
ners." The child, who is taught, by precept and hourly 
example in home-life, that politeness is a religious duty, 
and sharp speech vulgar, and who is trained to practise 
with the members of his family the "small, sweet courte- 
sies of life" that make the society man and woman ele- 
gant and popular, will suffer many things at the tongues 
of school and college mates, yet will not his "manners" 
depart from him — when he is older! 

As home-bred girls, we had to undergo a system of moral 
and mental acclimation during that session. I do not 
regret the ordeal. Quiet, confidential talks with Cousin 
Mary, whose tact was as fine as her breeding, helped me to 
sustain philosophically what would have made me miser- 
able but for her tender and judicious ministrations. 

"It is always right to do the right thing," was a maxim 
she wrought into my consciousness by many repetitions. 
"The danger of association with rude and coarse people 
is that we may fall into their ways to protect ourselves. 
It may be good for you to rough it for a while, so long as 
it does not roughen you." 

Little by little we got used to the "roughing." School- 

152 



COUNTRY GIRLS AT A CITY SCHOOL 

work we thoroughly enjoyed, and our teachers appreciated 
this. From each of them we met with kind and helpful 
treatment as soon as the routine of study was fully es- 
tablished. 

Our French master supplied the crucial test of philosophy 
and diligence. He was a "character" in his way, and he 
fostered the reputation. In all my days I have never 
known a man who could, at pleasure, be such a savage and 
so fine a gentleman. He was six-feet-something in height, 
superbly proportioned and heavily mustachioed. Few 
men curtained the upper lip then. He had received a 
university education in France; had been a rich man in 
New York, marrying there the daughter of Samuel Ogden, 
a well-known citizen, the father of Anna Cora Mowatt, 
the actress, who afterward became Mrs. Ritchie. 

Isidore Guillet lost wife and fortune in the same year, 
and, after a vain effort to recoup his finances at the North, 
removed to Richmond with his three sons, and became a 
fashionable French teacher. He was fierce in class, and 
suave outside of the recitation-room. Our late and now- 
more-than-ever-lamented tutor had laid a fair foundation 
for us in the French language. We were "up" in the 
verbs to an extent that excited the rude applause of our 
classmates. We read French as fluently as English, and 
were tolerably conversant with such French classics as 
were current in young ladies' seminaries. These things 
were less than vanity when M. Guillet and Manesca took 
the field. We were required to copy daily seven or eight 
foolscap pages-full of that detestable "System." Begin- 
ning with " Avez vous le clou?'' and running the gamut 
of "le hon clou," "Ze mauvais clou,'' and "/e hon clou de 
voire ipere," ''le mauvais clou de voire grandmhe," up to 
the maddening discords of " I'interrogatif et le negatif" — 
we were rushed breathlessly along the lines ordained by 
the merciless "Sj^stem" and more merciless master, until 

153 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

it was a marvel that nerves and health were not wrecked. 
I said just now that the lion roared him soft in general 
society. Throughout a series of Spanish lessons given to 
us two girls through the medium of French, he was the 
mildest-mannered monster I ever beheld. One day he 
went out of his way to account for the unlikeness to the 
language-master of the class. The explanation was a re- 
fined version of Mr. Bagnet's code — "Disciphne must be 
maintained." To the pair of girls who read and recited 
to him in their private sitting-room, he was the finished 
gentleman in demeanor, and in talk delightfully instructive. 
His family in Paris had known the present generation of 
Lafayettes. Lamartine — at that epoch of French Revolu- 
tionary history, the popular idol — was his personal friend. 
He brought and read to us letters from the author-states- 
man, thrilling with interest, and kept us advised, through 
his family correspondence, of the stirring changes going 
on in his native land. All this was in the uncovenanted 
conversational exercise that succeeded the Spanish lesson. 
The latter over, he would toss aside the books used in it 
with an airy "Eh, Men done! pour la conversation!" and 
plunge into the matter uppermost in his mind, chatting 
brilliantly and gayly in the most elegant French imagin- 
able, bringing into our commonplace, provincial lives the 
flavor and sparkle of the Parisian salon. 

To return to our first winter in a city school : The session 
began on October 5th. We had ceased to be homesick, 
and were learning to sustain, with seeming good-humor, crit- 
icisms of our "countrified ways and old-fashioned talk," 
when our mother came to town for her fall shopping. She 
arrived on the first of November, my father tarrying behind 
to vote on the fourth. We had a glorious Saturday. It 
was our very first real shopping expedition, and it has had 
no equal in our subsequent experiences. There was a 
lecture on Saturday morning. Mr. Richard Sterling, the 

154 



VELVET HATS AND CLAY'S DEFEAT 

brother-in-law of our late tutor, and the head-master of a 
classical school for boys, lectured to us weekly upon Natural 
Philosophy. We were out by eleven o'clock, and on 
emerging from the house, we found our mother awaiting 
us without. 

The day was divine, and we had worn our best walking- 
dresses, in anticipation of the shopping frolic. Three of 
the girls had commented upon our smart attire, one re- 
marking that we "really looked like folks." The vocabu- 
lary of school-girls usually harmonizes with their deport- 
ment. The tall girl I have spoken of as "Miss Blank," 
added to her patronizing notice of the country girls, the 
encouraging assurance that "if we only had bonnets less 
than a century old, we would be quite presentable." 

We held our peace, hugging to our souls the knowledge 
that we were that day to try on two velvet bonnets — real 
velvet — the like of which had never graced our heads before. 
We could afford to smile superior to contempt and to 
patronage — the lowest device of the mean mind, the 
favorite tool of the consciously underbred. 

I forgot heat and bitterness, and misanthropy died a 
natural death in the milliner's shop. The new hat was a 
dream of beauty and becomingness in my unlearned eyes. 
It was a soft plum-color, and had a tiny marabou feather 
on the side. I had never worn a feather. Mea's was 
dark-blue and of uncut velvet. It, too, was adorned with 
a white feather. I could have touched the tender blue 
heavens with one finger when it was decided that we might 
wear the new bonnets home, and have the old ones sent 
up instead. 

"You know I never like to have new clothes worn for 
the first time to church/' om* mother remarked, aside, 
to us. 

We walked up-town, meeting my father at the foot of 
Capitol Street. He was in a prodigious hurry, forging 

155 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

along at a rate that made it difficult for me to overtake 
him when my mother told me to "run after him, and we 
would all go home together." 

He drew out his watch when I told my errand breath- 
lessly. His eyes were bright with excitement; as he hur- 
ried back to offer his arm to his wife, he said: 

"I must be on Broad Street when the Northern train 
comes in. We have just time if you don't mind walking 
briskly." 

Mind it! I could have run every step of the way if that 
would bring the news to us more quickly. My heart smote 
me remorsefully. For in the engrossing event of the new 
bonnet I had forgotten, for the time, that decisive news of 
the election would certainly be received by the mail-train 
which ran into Richmond at two o'clock. It must be re- 
membered that the period of which I write antedated the 
electric telegraph. We had but one through mail daily. 
Election news had been pouring in heavily, but slowly. We 
were not quite sure, even yet, how our own State had gone. 
The returns from New York and Pennsylvania would es- 
tablish the fact of the great Whig victory beyond a doubt. 
We said "the Clay victory," and were confident that it 
was an accomplished, established fact. True, my father 
and Uncle Cams had spoken rather gravely than appre- 
hensively last night of the unprecedentedly large Irish vote 
that had been polled. 

We were at the corner of Broad and Tenth Streets, and 
still at racing speed, when the train drew slowly into the 
station. The track lay in the centre of Broad Street, and 
the terminus was flush with the sidewalk. I was on one 
side of my father; my mother had his other arm. Mea, 
never a rapid walker, was some paces in the rear. I felt 
my father's step falter and slacken suddenly. Looking into 
his face, I saw it darken and harden. The mobile mouth 
was a straight, tense line. I thought that a groan escaped 

156 



VELVET HATS AND CLAY'S DEFEAT 

him. Before I could exclaim, a man strode toward us 
from the train. He grasped my father's arm and said 
something in his ear, I caught five words of one sentence : 

"The Irish vote did it!" 

At the same instant the ludicrous touch, never lacking 
from the supreme moments of life, was supplied to this by 
a boy walking down the street, his young face disfigured 
by the wrathful disappointment stamped upon the visages 
of most of the men thronging the sidewalk. Some ardent 
Democrat had nailed a vigorous poke-stalk against the 
fence, and the lad stopped to kick it viciously. Even my 
father smiled at the impotent fury of the action. 

"That's right, my boy!" he said, and struck the weed 
into the gutter with a blow of his cane. 

"I wish other evils were as easily disposed of!" was all 
that escaped the tightly-closed lips for the next half-hour. 

The gloom rested upon face and spirits for twenty-four 
hours. Richmond was a Whig city, and the very air 
seemed oppressed by what we reckoned as a National woe. 
It is not easy to appreciate in this century that the defeat 
of a Presidential candidate imported so much to the best 
men in the country. 

"How did you know what had happened, father?" I 
ventured to ask that night when the silent meal was 
over. We had moved and spoken as if the beloved dead 
lay under our roof, I stole out to the long back porch as 
we arose from table, and stood there, leaning over the rail- 
ing and listening to the dirge chanted by the river. The 
stars twinkled murkily through the city fogs; a sallow 
moon hung low in the west. It was a dolorous world. I 
wondered how soon the United States Government would 
collapse into anarchy. Could — would my father continue 
to live here under the rule of Polk? How I loathed the 
name and the party that had made it historic I So quietly 
had my father approached that I was made aware of his 

157 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

proximity by the scent of his cigar. I was vaguely con- 
scious of a gleam of gratitude that he had this slight solace. 
His cigar meant much to him. I laid my hand on that 
resting on the railing. Such strong, capable hands as his 
were! His fingers were closed silently upon mine, and I 
gathered courage to put my question. The blow had fallen 
before we met the man who had hissed at "the Irish vote." 

"How did you know what had happened, father?" 

No need to speak more definitely. Our minds had room 
for but one thought. 

" It was arranged with the engineer and conductor that 
a flag should be made fast to the locomotive if there were 
good news. It was to be a large and handsome flag. Hun- 
dreds were on the lookout for it. As soon as I caught sight 
of the train I saw that the flag was not there." 

He smoked hard and fast. A choking in my throat held 
me silent. For, in a lightning flash of fancy, I had before 
me the glorious might-have-been that would have driven 
the waiting hundreds mad with joy. I pictured how 
proudly the "large, handsome flag" would have floated in 
the sunshine, and the wild enthusiasm of the crowds col- 
lected upon the sidewalks — the gladness that would have 
flooded our hearts and our home. 

It was, perhaps, five minutes before I could manage my 
voice to say: 

"How do you suppose Mr. Clay will bear it?" 

I was a woman-child, and my whole soul went out in the 
longing to comfort the defeated demigod. 

"Like the hero that he is, my daughter. This" — still 
not naming the disaster — "means more to the nation than 
to him." 

He raised his hat involuntarily, as I had seen him do 
that bright, happy May morning when we walked down 
to Jordan's Creek to be amused by the Democratic bar- 
becue. 

158 



VELVET HATS AND CLAY'S DEFEAT 

He removed it entirely a week later, and bowed his bared 
head silently, when a fellow-Whig told him, with moist eyes, 
that the decisive tidings were brought to the hero as he 
stood in a social gathering of friends. Mr. Clay — so ran 
the tale I have never heard contradicted — was called out 
of the room by the messenger, returning in a few minutes 
to resume the conversation the summons had interrupted, 
with unruffled mien and the perfect courtesy that never 
failed him in public and in private. It was said then that 
he repeated on that evening, in reply to the expressed sor- 
row of his companions — if, indeed, it was not said then for 
the first time — the immortal utterance: 

"I would rather be right than President!" 

The inevitable dash of the ludicrous struck across the 
calamity in the form of my father's disapproval of the vel- 
vet bonnet I would not have exchanged on Saturday for 
a ducal tiara. I had meant to reserve the appearance of 
it as a pleasant surprise, and to call his attention to it 
when I was dressed for church next day. I did not blame 
him for not noticing it in our rapid tramp up Capitol Street 
on Saturday. He had weightier matters on his mind. 
With the honest desire of diverting him from the train of 
ideas that had darkened his visage for twenty-four hours, 
I donned the precious head-piece ten minutes before it was 
time to set out for church, and danced into my moth- 
er's room where he sat reading. Walking up to him, I 
swept a marvellous courtesy and bolted the query full at 
him: 

"How do you like my new bonnet?" 

He lowered the book and surveyed me with lack-lustre 
eyes. 

"Not at all, I am sorry to say." 

I fairly staggered back, casting a look of anguished ap- 
peal at my mother. Being of my sex, she comprehend- 
ed it. 

159 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

"Why, father! we think it very pretty," laying her hand 
on his shoulder. "And she never had a velvet bonnet 
before." 

I saw the significant tightening of the small fingers, and 
he must have felt it. But the dull eyes did not lighten, 
the corners of the mouth did not lift. 

•'As I said, I do not admire it. Nor do I think it be- 
coming." 

I turned on my heel, as he might have done, and went 
to my room. When Mea and I joined our parents in the 
lower hall, the splendors of the new bonnets were extin- 
guished by thick barege veils. We had not meant to wear 
them in November, They were indispensable for summer 
noons. After I had confided my tale of woe to my sister, 
we hastened to exhume the veils from our trunks and to 
bind them over our hats. We walked, slow and taciturn, 
behind our elders for five squares. Then my father turned 
and beckoned to us. He was actually smiling — a whim- 
sical gleam that had in it something of shame, and much 
of humor. 

"Take off those veils!" he said, positively, yet kindly. 
And, as we hesitated visibly : "I mean what I say ! I want 
to take a good look at those bonnets." 

It was in a quiet corner of a secluded street, lined with 
what was once a favorite shade-tree in Richmond — the 
Otaheite mulberry. The night had been cold, and the 
last russet leaves were ankle-deep on the sidewalk. They 
rustled as I moved uneasily in loosening my veil. 

I never passed the spot afterward without thinking of 
the absurd little episode in the history of those melancholy 
days. 

"I see, now, that they are very pretty and very be- 
coming," my father pursued, as they were divested of the 
ugly mufflers. " I have been very cross for the past twenty- 
foui* hours. I suppose because I have been horribly upset 

160 



VELVET HATS AND CLAY'S DEFEAT 

by the National calamity. We will turn over a new and 
cleaner leaf." 

He was often stern, and oftencr imperative. It was his , 
nature to be strong in all that he set his hand or mind 
unto. I have yet to see another strong man who was so 
ready to acknowledge a fault, and who made such clean 
work of the act. 



XVI 

HOME AT CHRISTMAS — A CANDY-PULL Al^D HOG-KILLING 

We went home at Christmas! 

Twenty years were to elapse before I should spend an- 
other Christmas week in the country. We did not know 
this then. Not a hitch impeded the smooth unrolling of 
the weeks of expectation and the days of preparation for 
the holidays. We were to set out on Monday. On Friday, 
Spots wood drove up to our door, and Mary Anne, my 
mother's own maid, alighted. That evening James Ivey 
reported for escort duty. Even elderly women seldom 
travelled alone at that date. About young girls were 
thrown protective parallels that would widen our college- 
woman's mouth with laughter and her eyes with amaze- 
ment. There were no footpads on the stage -road from 
Richmond to Powhatan, and had these gentry abounded 
in the forests running down to the wheel-tracks, stalwart 
Spotswood and a shot-gun would have kept them at bay. 
Maid and outrider were the outward sign of unspoken and 
unwritten conventions rooted in love of womankind. The 
physical weakness of the sex was their strength; their de- 
pendence upon stronger arms and tender hearts their war- 
rant for any and every demand they chose to make upon 
their natural protectors. 

We had none of these things in mind that joyful Mon- 
day morning when Uncle Cams, on one hand, and James 
Ivey on the other, helped us into the carriage. Carriage- 
steps were folded up, accordion-wise, and doubled back and 

162 



HOME AT CHRISTMAS 

down upon the floor of the vehicle when not in use. The 
clatter, as the coach-door was opened and the steps let 
down, was the familiar accompaniment of successive ar- 
rivals of guests at hospitable homes, and worshippers at 
country churches. 

The trim flight fell with a merry rattle for the two hap- 
piest girls in the State, and we sprang in, followed by 
Mary Anne. We were wedged snugly in place by parcels 
that filled every corner and almost touched the roof. 
Presents we had been buying for a month with our own 
pocket-money and making in our few spare hours, were 
bound into bundles and packed in boxes. The wells under 
the cushioned seats were crammed with fragiles and con- 
fectionery, the like of which our lesser sisters and brothers 
had never tasted. 

Uncle Carus prophesied a snow-storm. My mother used 
to say that he was a wise weather-prophet. We stubborn- 
ly discredited the prediction until we had left the city 
spires five miles behind us, and James Ivey's overcoat and 
leggings (some called them "spatter-dashes") were dotted 
with feathery flakes. Whereupon we discovered that there 
was nothing in the world jollier than travelling in a snow- 
storm, and grew wildly hilarious in the prospect. The 
snow fell steadily and in grim earnest. By the time we 
got to Flat Rock, where we were to have the horses and 
ourselves fed, the wheels churned up, at every revolution, 
mud that was crushed strawberry in color, topped with 
whiteness that might have been whipped cream ; for the 
roads were heavy by reason of an open winter. This was 
Christmas snow. We exulted in it as if we had had a 
hand in the making. Our gallant outrider, albeit a staid 
youth of three-and-twenty, fell in with our humor. He 
made feeble fun of his own appearance as each wrinkle in 
his garments became a drift, and his dark hair was like a 
horsehair wig such as we had seen in pictures of Enghsh 

12 163 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

barristers. His bay horse was a match to our iron-grays, 
and the twelve hoofs were ploughing through a level fall 
of six inches before we espied the tremulous sparks we 
recognized as village windows. 

Our throats ached with laughing and our hearts with 
great sweUing waves of happiness, as we tumbled out of 
our seats — and our bundles after us — at the gate of the 
long, low house that might have been mean in eyes accus- 
tomed to rows of three-storied brick "residences" on city 
streets. Every door was flung wide; every window was 
red with fire and lamp light. 

We had fried chicken and waffles, hot rolls, ham, beaten 
biscuits, honey, three kinds of preserves, and, by special 
petition of all the children, a mighty bowl of snow and 
cream, abundantly sweetened, for supper. This dispatched, 
and at full length, the journey having made us hungry, 
and the sight of us having quickened the appetites of the 
rest, we sat about the fire in the great "chamber" on the 
first floor, that was the throbbing heart of the home, and 
talked until ten o'clock. The faithful clock that hung 
above the mantel did not vary five minutes from the truth 
in that number of years; but it was dumbly discreet, 
never obtruding an audible reminder of the flight of hours. 
I saw one of the same pattern in a curio shop last week. 
The salesman asked fifty dollars for it. 

The chimney in "the chamber" drew better than any other 
in the house. A fire was kindled on that hearth, night and 
morning, for nine months in the year. My mother main- 
tained that the excellent health of her young family was 
due in part to that fact. A little blaze dispelled the linger- 
ing dampness of the morning and the gathering fogs of 
night. She knew nothing of germs, benevolent and malev- 
olent, but she appreciated the leading fact that cold and 
humidity signify danger, heat and dryness go with health. 

I coveted no girl's home and apparel, as Mea and I snug- 

164 



HOME AT CHRISTMAS 

gled down under our blankets on the mattress my father 
was so far in advance of his times as to insist should be 
substituted for a feather-bed in each bedroom occupied by 
a child. The "whim" was one of the ''notions" that 
earned for him the reputation of eccentricity with con- 
servative neighbors. 

Our windows were casements, and rattled sharply in 
blasts that had thrashed the snow-storm into a tempest. 
The wind pounded, as with hammers, upon the sloping 
roof over our happy heads. Longfellow had not yet 
written 

"My little ones are folded like the flocks," 

but I know my mother felt it. 

She came near saying it when I told her at the breakfast- 
table that I fell asleep, saying to myself: 

"He'll go into the barn and keep himself warm 
And hide his head under his wing." 

"I could think of nothing, whenever I awoke, but the 
mother sheep with her lambs all with her in the fold," was 
her answer. "And of 'the hollow of His hand.' We have 
much to make us thankful this Christmas." 

"To make us thankful!" She was ever on the watch 
for that. Like Martin Luther's little bird, she "sat on her 
twig, content, and let God take care." 

A bright sun left little of what had promised to be a deep 
snow, by Christmas Day. Four Christmas-guns were fired 
at midnight of Christmas Eve in four different quarters of 
the village. That is, holes were drilled with a big auger 
into the heart of a stout oak or hickory, and stuffed with 
powder. At twelve o'clock a torch was applied by a fast 
runner, who took to his heels on the instant to escape the 
explosion. The detonation was that of a big cannon. 

165 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Sometimes, the tree was rent apart. That was a matter of 
small moment in a region where acres of forest-lands were 
cleared for tobacco fields by the primitive barbarism of 
girdling giant trees that had struck their roots into the 
virgin soil and lifted strong arms to heaven for centuries. 
From midnight to sunrise the sound of ''pop-crackers" 
and pistol-shots was hardly intermitted by a minute's si- 
lence. With the awakening of quieter, because older folk, 
the air rang with shouts of "Christmas gift!" addressed 
impartially to young and old, white and black. 

The salutation was a grievous puzzle and positive an- 
noyance to our New-England grandmother, the first Christ- 
mas she passed with us. By the time she was ready for 
breakfast she had emptied her pocket of loose coins, and 
bestowed small articles of dress and ornament upon three 
or four of the (to her apprehension) importunate claimants. 
When she made known the grievance — which she did in 
her usual imperious fashion — my father shouted with 
laughter. With difficulty he drilled into her mind that the 
greeting was not a petition, still less a demand. From that 
day he forbade any of us to say "Christmas gift!" to "Old 
Mistis," as the servants called her. We children wished 
her, "A merry Christmas." The servants never learned the 
unaccustomed form. The old lady did not enter into the 
real significance of the words that offended her. Nor, for 
that matter, did one out of a hundred of those who had 
used it all their lives, as each Christmas rolled around. It 
never dawned upon me until I heard how Russian peas- 
ants and Russian nobility alike greet every one they meet 
on Easter morning with — "The Lord is risen," receiving the 
answer, " He is risen indeed !" The exultant cry of " Ch rist- 
mas gift!" was a proclamation of the best thing that ever 
came into the world. The exchange of holiday offerings 
at the festal season commemorates the same. All over 
Christendom it is an act of grateful, if too often blind, 

166 



A CANDY-PULL 

obedience to the command — "Freely ye have received, 
freely give." 

There were twelve servants in our family — eight adults 
and four children. Not one was overlooked in the distri- 
bution of presents that followed breakfast and family 
prayers. The servants were called in to morning and even- 
ing prayers as regularly as the white members were assem- 
bled for the service. The custom was universal in town 
and country, and was, without doubt, borrowed from Eng- 
lish country life — the model for Virginian descendants. 
Men and women took time to pray, and made haste to do 
nothing. We prate long and loudly now of deep breathing. 
We practised it in that earlier generation. 

On Christmas night we had a " molasses stew." We have 
learned to say ''candy-pull" since then. A huge cauldron 
of molasses was boiled in the kitchen — a detached building 
of a story-and-a-half, standing about fifty feet from "the 
house." Gilbert — the dining-room servant, who would be 
"a butler" now — brought it into the dining-room when it 
was done to a turn, and poured it into great buttered plat- 
ters arranged around the long table. All of us, girls and 
boys, had pinned aprons or towels over our festive gar- 
ments, and put back our cuffs from our wrists. My mother 
set the pace in the pulling. She had a reputation for mak- 
ing the whitest and most spongy candy in the county, and 
she did it in the daintiest way imaginable. Buttering the 
tips of her fingers lightly, she drew carefully from the sur- 
face of the platter enough of the cooling mixture for a 
good "pull." In two minutes she had an amber ribbon, 
glossy and elastic, that bleached fast to cream-color under 
her rapid, weaving motion, until she coiled or braided com- 
pleted candy — brittle, dry, and porous — upon a dish lined 
with paper. She never let anybody take the other end of 
the rope; she did not butter her fingers a second time, 
and used the taper tips alone in the work, and she had the 

167 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

candy on the dish before any of the others had the sticky, 
scalding mass in working order. We dipped our fingers 
again and again in butter and, when hard bestead, into 
flour, which last resort my mother scorned as unpro- 
fessional, and each girl had a boy at the other end of her 
rope. It was graceful work when done secundum artem. 
The fast play of hands; the dexterous toss and exchange 
of the ends of shining strands that stiffened too soon if not 
handled aright; the strain upon bared wrists and strong 
shoulders as the great ropes hardened; the laughing faces 
bent over the task; the cries of feigned distress as the im- 
mature confectionery became sticky, or parted into strings, 
under careless manipulation; the merry peals of laughter 
at defeat or success — made the Christmas frolic picturesque 
and gay. I wondered then, and I have often asked since, 
why no painter has ever chosen as a subject this one of our 
national pastimes. 

A homelier, but as characteristic an incident of that 
Christmas — the last we were to have in the country home — 
was hog-killing. 

The " hog and hominy," supposed by an ignorant reading- 
public to have formed the main sustenance of the Virginian 
planter and his big family, are as popularly believed to have 
been raised upon his own farm or farms. Large herds of 
pigs were born and brought up on Virginia lands. Per- 
haps one-half of the pork cured into bacon by country and 
by village folk, was bought from Kentucky drovers. Early in 
the winter — before the roads became impassable — immense 
droves of full-grown hogs crowded the routes leading over 
mountain and valley into the sister State. We had notice 
of the approach of one of these to our little town before it 
appeared at the far end of the main street, by the hoarse 
grunting that swelled into hideous volume — unmistakable 
and indescribable — a continuous rush of dissonance, across 
which were projected occasional squeals. 

168 



A HOG-KILLING 

A drove had entered the village a week before Christ- 
mas, and rested for the night in the wide "old field" back 
of the Bell Tavern. Citizens of the Court House and from 
the vicinity had bought freely from the drovers. More 
than twenty big-boned grunters were enclosed in a large 
pen at the foot of our garden, and fed lavishly for ten days, 
to recover them from the fatigue of the journey that left 
them leaner than suited the fancy of the purchaser. On 
the morning of the cold day appointed for the "killing," 
they were driven to a near-by "horse-branch" and washed. 
At noon they were slaughtered at a spot so distant from 
the house that no sound indicative of the deed reached our 
ears. Next day the carcasses were duly cut up into hams, 
shoulders, middlings (or sides of bacon), chines, and spareribs. 

Lean leavings from the dissection were apportioned for 
sausage-meat; the heads and feet would be made into 
souse (headcheese); even the tails, when roasted in the 
embers, were juicy tidbits devoured relishfully by children, 
white and black. 

Not an edible atom of the genial porker went to waste in 
the household of the notable housewife. The entrails, 
cleaned and scalded into "chitterlings," were accounted a 
luscious delicacy in the kitchen. They rarely appeared upon 
the table of "white folks." I never saw them dished for 
ourselves, or our friends. Yet I have heard my father tell 
of meeting John Marshall, then Chief Justice of the United 
States, in the Richmond streets one morning, as the great 
man was on his way home from the Old Market. He had a 
brace of ducks over one arm, and a string of chitterlings 
swung jauntily from the other. 

And why not? Judge Marshall had "Hudibras" at his 
tongue's end, and could have quoted: 

"His warped ear hung o'er the strings, 
Which was but souse to chitterlings." 
169 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The Virginia house-mother had classic precedent for the 
utilization of what her granddaughter accounts but offal. 
I once heard a celebrated divine say, unctuously: 
'"Hog-killing time' is to me the feast of the year." 
And nobody stared, or smiled, or said him "Nay." 
Chine, sparerib, and sausage, such as titillated our palates 
in the first half of the nineteenth century, are not to be had 
now for love or money. The base imitations sold to us in 
the shambles are the output of "contract work." 



XVII 

A NOTABLE AFFAIR OF HONOR 

Early in the second winter of our residence in Rich- 
mond, the community and the State were thrilled to pain- 
ful interest by the most notable duel recorded in the history 
of Virginia. 

On the desk at my side lies a time-embrowned pamphlet, 
containing a full report of the legal proceedings that suc- 
ceeded the tragedy. 

The leading Democratic paper of the State at that time 
was published by Thomas Ritchie and his sons. The father, 
to whom was awarded the title of "The Nestor of the South- 
ern Press," was a dignified gentleman who had won the 
esteem of his fellow-citizens by a long life spent under the 
limelight that beats* more fiercely nowhere than upon a 
political leader who is also an editor. In morals, stainless, 
in domestic and social life, exemplary and beloved, the 
elder Ritchie enjoyed, in the evening of his day, a reputa- 
tion unblurred by the rancor of partisan spite. The policy 
of his paper was fearless, but never unscrupulous. To the 
Democratic party, the Enquirer was at once banner and 
bulwark. Of his elder son, William Foushee, I shall have 
something to say in later chapters, and in a lighter vein. 
The second son, the father's namesake, was recognized as 
the moving spirit of the editorial columns. 

John Hampden Pleasants was as strongly identified with 
the Whig party. He was a man in the prime of life; like 
the Ritchies, descended from an ancient and honorable 

171 



MARION HARLAND'S. AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Virginia family, noble in physique, and courtly in bearing. 
He held a trenchant pen, and had been associated from his 
youth up with the press. He had lately assumed the 
office of editor-in-chief of a new paper, and brought it 
into notice by vigorous and brilliant editorials that were 
the talk of both parties. 

The opening gini of what was to be a sanguinary combat 
was fired by a Washington correspondent of the Enquirer, 
under date of January 16, 1846: 

"I am much mistaken if Mr. John Hampden Pleasants 
does not intend, with his new paper, to out-Herod Herod — 
to take the lead of the Intelligencer, if possible, in exciting 
Abolitionism by showing Southern Whig sympathy in 
their movements; and thus, for the benefit of Whiggery, 
to cheat them into the belief that the Southern patrons 
of either of these gentlemen are ceasing to detest their in- 
cendiary principles, and beginning, like the Whigs of the 
North, to coalesce with them. 

"They agitate to affect public opinion at the South, and 
Messrs. Gales and Pleasants practically tell them to go on 
— that they are succeeding to admiration." 

It was a poor shot— more like a boy's play with a toy 
gun than a marksman's aim. But the bullet was poisoned 
by the reference to Abolitionism. That was never ineffec- 
tive. A friend in conservative Philadelphia called Mr. 
Pleasants' notice to the attack, which had up to that time 
escaped his eyes: 

"I have d d this as a lie every time I had a chance, 

although I believe that you, like myself — a Virginian and 
a slaveholder — regard Slavery as an evil," 

Mr. Pleasants replied in terms that were singularly mild 
for a fighting political editor. 

I may say, here, that it is a gross blunder to compare 
the methods of party-writers and orators of to-day with 
those of sixty years ago, to the disadvantage of the foraier. 

172 



A NOTABLE AFFAIR OF HONOR 

They fought, then, without the gloves, and as long as breath 
lasted. 

"I confess my surprise, nay, my regret," wrote Mr. 
Pleasants, "that the present editors of the Enquirer 
should, by publication, have indorsed, so far as that sort 
of indorsement can go, and without any explanatory re- 
mark, the misrepresentations of their Washington corre- 
spondent. They ought, as public men, to know that I 
stand upon exactly the same platform with their father 
m respect to this subject. In 1832 we stood, for once, 
shoulder to shoulder, and since that time we have both 
expressed, without intermission, the same abhorrence of 
Northern Abolition, and the same determination, under 
no circumstances which could be imagined, to submit, in 
the slightest degree, to its dictation or intrusion. ... 

"These were also the views— namely, that Slavery was 
an evil, and ought to be got rid of, but at our own time, 
at our own motion, and in our own way-^f Washington' 
Jefferson, Henry, George Mason, the two Lees, Madison' 
Monroe, Wirt, and all the early patriots, statesmen, and 
sages of Virginia — without exception! 

"Such are my opinions still, and if they constitute me 
an Abolitionist, I can only say that I would go further to 
see some of the Abolition leaders hanged than any man 
in Virginia, especially since their defeat of xMr. Clay. 

"In respect to Slavery, I take no pious, no fanatical 
view. I am not opposed to it because I think it morally 
wrong, for I know the multitude of slaves to be better off 
than the whites. I am against it for the sake of the whites, 
my own race. I see young and powerful commonwealths 
around us, with whom, while we carry the burden of 
Slavery, we can never compete in power, and yet with 
whom we must prepare to contend with equal arms, or 
consent to be their slaves and vassals— we or our children. 
In all, I look but to the glory and liberty of Virginia." 

173 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The confession of State's Rights would seem strong 
enough to soften the heart of an original Secessionist — a 
being as yet unheard of — and the respectful mention of 
the Nestor of the Enquirer might have drawn the fire of 
the filial editor. How far these failed of their effect is 
obvious in the return shot: 

"Although the language used by Mr. Pleasants may not 
be considered directly offensive, yet we are unwilling to 
allow him or others to make hypotheses in regard to our 
veracity. When we desire lectures on morals we hope to 
be allowed to choose our own preceptor. We certainly 
shall not apply to him!" 

In Mr. Pleasants' rejoinder he again reminds the young 
men that their father and himself had been of the same 
mind on the Slavery question for twenty years: 

"The correspondent may have believed what he said, 
in ignorance of the facts, and may therefore be guiltless 
of premeditated injustice, but the editors who indorse his 
calumny by printing it without any explanation, either 
did know better, in which case their candor and liberaUty 
are compromised, or ought to have known better, in which 
case they themselves may say what responsibility they in- 
cur by printing an accusation utterly false in fact, and 
calculated to infuse the greatest possible prejudice against 
him respecting whom it is promulgated." 

The answer of the Enquirer was a sneer throughout: 

"We doubt whether he knows, himself, what principles he 
may be disposed to advocate. His most intimate friends 
are sometimes puzzled to understand his position. ... If 
our correspondent 'Macon' wishes it, he will, of course, 
have the use of our columns, but if he will take our 
advice, he will let Mr. J. H. P. alone. To use an old 
proverb — 'Give the gentleman rope enough, and he will 
hang himself!'" 

In a long letter to a personal friend, but published in 

174 



A NOTABLE AFFAIR OF HONOR 

the News and Star — what would be called now an "open 
letter" — Mr. Pleasants sums up the points of the con- 
troversy, and calmly assumes the animus of the attack 
to be personal enmity, a sort of vendetta feud, against 
which argument is powerless: 

"Justice from the Richmond Enquirer I have long ago 
ceased to expect. For more than twenty years I have 
lived under its ceaseless misrepresentations and malevo- 
lent misconstructions. I had hoped, when the former 
editor removed to Washington to reoeive the rich rewards 
of his devotion to party, to live upon better terms with 
his successors, and I have studied to cultivate better re- 
lations by respectful consideration and undeviating cour- 
tesy ; but I have found that other passions besides the love 
of liberty are transmitted from sire to son. . . . Calmly re- 
viewing this piece of impertinence, I should be of opinion 
that this assailant meditated fight, if I could think that 
a young brave would seek, as an antagonist upon whom to 
flesh his maiden sword, a man so much older than him- 
self as I am, and with dependent children." 

In allusion to a former altercation with "II Secretario," 
a "foe illustrious for his virtues and talents, whom this 
aspirant after knighthood" declined to encounter — the 
senior combatant concludes: 

"Battle, then, being clearly not his object, I must suppose 
that he meant no more than a little gasconade, and the re- 
covery, at a cheap rate, of a forfeited reputation for 
courage." 

With the, to modern taste, odd blending of personality 
with editorial anonymity that characterized the pro- 
fessional duel throughout, "We, the junior editor," 
retorts : 

"This letter affords strong corroborative evidence of our 
opinion expressed in our article of the 27th ultimo, and 
from Mr. J. H. Pleasants' communication, evidently under- 

175 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

stood by him to the extent we intended — namely, that facts 
within our knowledge proved him to be a coward. 

"He appeals to the confines of age and dependent chil- 
dren. Let it be! We shall not disturb him." 

Ten years after the correspondence and the "affair" to 
which it was the prelude, an eminently respectable citizen 
of Richmond told my husband of a street-corner scene, 
date of February 21, 1846, the day on which the last con- 
tribution to the war of words above recorded, appeared in 
the Enquirer. 

"One of the groups one saw on all sides, in heated dis- 
cussion of the newspaper controversy and the probable 

outcome, was collected about Doctor , then, as now, 

pastor of the Church. He read out the last 

sentences of Ritchie's ultimatum with strong excitement. 
Then he struck the paper with his finger, and said: 'That 
settles the matter! Pleasants must fight! There is no 
way out of it !' 

"One of the party ventured a remonstrance to the effect 
that 'Pleasants was not a hot-headed boy to throw his life 
away. He might be made to see reason, and the matter 
be smoothed over,' etc. 

"The minister broke in warmly, with — 

"'Impossible, sir, impossible! No honorable man could 
sit down quietly under the insult! He must fight! There 
is no alternative!' 

"Now," continued the narrator, "I am not a church- 
member, and I had no overstrained scruples against duel- 
ling at that time. But it sent a queer shock through me 
when I heard a minister of the gospel of peace take that 
ground. I felt that I could never go to hear him preach 
again. And I never did ! I heard he made a most feeling 
allusion to poor Pleasants in a sermon preached shortly 
after his death. That didn't take the bad taste out of my 
mouth." 

176 



A NOTABLE AFFAIR OF HONOR 

How general was the sympathy with the incautiously 
expressed opinion of the divine can hardly be appreciated 
now that the duello is reckoned among the errors of a ruder 
age. The city was in a ferment for the three days sepa- 
rating the 21st of February and the 25th, on which the 
memorable encounter took place. If any friend essayed 
to reconcile the offending and offended parties, we have 
no note of it. 

The nearest approach to arbitration recorded in the 
story of the trial is in the testimony of a man well- 
acquainted with both parties, who was asked by one of Mr. 
Ritchie's seconds to "go upon the ground as a mutual 
friend." 

He testified on the stand: "I decHned to do so. I 
asked him if the matter could be adjusted. I asked if 
Mr. Ritchie would not be willing to withdraw the epithet 
of 'coward,' in case Mr. Pleasants should come upon the 
field. His reply was that Mr. Ritchie conscientiously be- 
heved Mr. Pleasants to be a coward." 

The persuasions of other friends to whom he spoke, at 
an evening party ( !), of the affair to come off on the morrow, 
overcame the scruples of the reluctant pacificator. He 
accompanied the surgeon (the most eminent in the city, 
and one of the Faculty of Richmond Medical College) to 
the ground next morning. The meeting was no secret, 
except— presumably— to the authorities who might have 
prevented it. Going up to Mr. Ritchie's second, he made 
a final effort to avert the murder: 

" I renewed the application I had made the evening be- 
fore, telling him that Mr. Pleasants was on the field, and 
asking him if he would not withdraw the imputation of 
cowardice. He replied that he would keep his friend there 
fifteen minutes, and no longer." 

The morning was raw, and the wind from the river was 
searching. There had been rain during the night, and the 

177 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ground was slippery with sleet. The principals were 
equipped with other arms than the duelling pistols. 

"Mr. Pleasants put a revolver into the left pocket of 
his coat; then he took two duelling pistols, one in his 
right, and the other in his left hand." At this point the 
witness interpolates: "I looked away about that time." 
(As well he might!) ''The next weapon I saw him arm 
himself with was his sword-cane under his left arm. He 
had a bowie-knife under his vest." 

Of Mr. Ritchie it was testified: 

"He had four pistols and also a revolver. He had the 
larger pistols in his belt. I did not see his sword until 
after the rencontre. He had it drawn when I came up to 
him. I supposed it was a bowie-knife." 

After a brief parley as to the disadvantages of a position 
first selected, and the choice of a second, the word was 
given to advance and fire. The principals were two hun- 
dred yards apart when the word was given. 

"Mr. Ritchie tired at the distance of twenty-five or 
thirty yards. Mr. Pleasants fired his first pistol within 
about fifteen or twenty feet of Mr. Ritchie. ... At the 
third shot they were more rapid. Mr. Pleasants advanced. 
At the third fire Mr. Ritchie's form became obscure; Mr. 
Pleasants still advancing, I saw him within six or seven 
feet of Mr. Ritchie. It was then that Mr. Pleasants fired 
his second pistol." 

Thus the eminent surgeon, who had refused to come 
to the field as the friend of both parties, but yielded when 
asked to serve in his professional capacity. He remarks, 
parenthetically, here: 

"I am now giving my recollection of events transpiring 
in a short time and under great excitement." 

Perhaps, in spite of the great excitement, the training 
of his calling held his senses steady, for his story of the 
fight is graphic and succinct. 

178 



A NOTABLE AFFAIR OF HONOR 

"I saw Mr. Pleasants level his second pistol; I heard 
the report ; I saw Mr. Ritchie stagger back, and I remarked 
to Mr. D. " (the man who had been overpersuaded to wit- 
ness the murder as a ''mutual friend"), " ' Ritchie is a dead 
man!' I so inferred, because he had staggered back. Then 
I heard several discharges without knowing who was fire- 
ing. I saw Mr. Pleasants striking at Mr. Ritchie with some 
weapon — whether a cane or a pistol, I do not know. I 
also saw him make several thrusts with a sword-cane. 
He gave several blows and two or three thrusts. I do not 
know if the sword was sheathed. During this part of the 
affair I saw Mr. Ritchie with his sword in his hand. I 
did not see him draw it. I saw him in the attitude of one 
making a thrust, and did see him make one or two thrusts 
at Mr. Pleasants. I remarked to Mr. D., 'Let us go up, 
or he'll be stabbed!' Two or three times the cry was 
made, 'Stop, Pleasants! Stop, Ritchie!' We went up. Mr. 
Pleasants was tottering; Mr. Ritchie was standing a few 
feet away, the point of his sword on the ground; he was 
perfectly quiet. Mr. Archer took Mr. Pleasants' arm and 
laid him down. He was on the ground when I reached 
him. Before I got to him I saw Mr. Ritchie leaving the 
ground. He walked a short distance, and then ran." 

It transpired afterward that not one of Pleasants's balls 
had struck Ritchie. The presumption was that the elder 
man was wounded by his opponent's first fire, and fired 
wildly in consequence. He received six balls in various 
parts of his body. But one of his bullets was found, and 
that in the gable of a building out of the line of the firing. 
The ball was embedded in the wood, nine feet above the 
ground. Mad with pain and blinded by rage, the wounded 
man struck at the other's face when they were near to- 
gether — some said, with the useless pistol, others with his 
sword-cane or bowie-knife. When the fugitive reached the 
carriage in waiting at the foot of the hill, his face was cov- 

13 179 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ered with blood. His physician was in the carriage, and 
examined him at once. But for the cut Up he was abso- 
lutely uninjured. 

The sun was just rising when John Hampden Pleasants 
was Hfted into the carriage and borne back to the city. 
He knew himself to be mortally wounded from the mo- 
ment he fell. 

This was on Wednesday, February 25th. Before the 
short winter day neared its noon, the tale was known from 
one end of Richmond to the other, and the whole popu- 
lation heaved with excitement. Business was practically 
suspended while men talked over the terrible event; the 
sidewalks were blocked by gossiping idlers. 

Our school was called to order at nine o'clock daily. On 
this morning, teachers and pupils were unfit for lessons. 
For Mr. Pleasants' only daughter was one of us, and a 
general favorite. His niece was hkewise a pupil, and the 
two had the same desk. Their vacant chairs made the 
tragedy a personal grief to each of us. When Mrs. Notting- 
ham bade us get our Bibles ready for the morning service, 
not a girl there could read without a break in her trembling 
voice, and when the dear old lady made tender mention 
in her prayer of the "sorrowing," and for "those drawing 
near unto death," our sobs drowned the fervent tones. 

I recall, as one of the minor incidents of the dreadful 
day, that when I went home in the afternoon, my grand- 
mother insisted I should read the newspaper corre- 
spondence aloud to her. She was a captious tyrant at 
times, and, like many another deaf person, sensitive as to 
the extent of her infirmity. She "was not so very deaf, 
except in damp weather, or when she had a cold. If people 
would only speak distinctly, and not mumble, she would 
have no trouble in understanding what was said." In 
this connection she often made flattering exception of my- 
self as the "one girl she knew who could speak English." 

180 



A NOTABLE AFFAIR OF HONOR 

In this capacity she summoned me to her side. She had 
the week's papers on her lap. I must pick out the articles 
"that were responsible for this scandalous affair." 

Down I sat, close beside her "good ear," and read, with 
precise articulation and right emphasis, the editorials from 
which I have made excerpts in this chapter. 

In copying them to-day, the strait-laced New-England- 
er's classification of the awful event is in my mind and ear. 
Every detail of the duel and the cold-blooded preparations 
therefor — the deadly weapons borne by, and girt about 
the principals; the sang-froid of seconds and attendant 
"friends"; the savagery of the combat; the tone of public 
sentiment that made the foul fight within sight of the 
steeples of the city practicable, although the leading men 
of the place were cognizant of each step that led to the 
scene on the river-bank before sunrise that gray morning 
— can we, in these later times we are wont to compare re- 
gretfully with those, sum up the details and the catas- 
trophe in phrase more fit and true? 

I resented it hotly, if silently, then. Even my father, 
who always spoke of duelling as a "remnant of Middle Age 
barbarism," shared in the universal grief for his party 
leader laid low in the prime of his useful manhood, and 
would suffer no censure of the challenge that had made the 
fight inevitable. 

"Pleasants is a brave man, and a proud. He could not 
endure to sit down quietly under the aspersion of cow- 
ardice." 

Another terrible day of suspense dragged its slow length 
along. Hourly bulletins from the chamber where the 
wounded man was making his last struggle with Fate, 
alternately cheered and depressed us. He was conscious 
and cheerful; he had exonerated his opponent from blame 
in the matter of the duel : 

" I thought I had run him through. It was providential 

181 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

that I did not. Ritchie is a brave man. I shall not re- 
cover. You will be candid with me, Doctor? It is all 
right." 

These were some of the sentences caught up by young 
and old, and repeated with tearful pride in the dying hero. 
That was what they called him ; and when on Friday morn- 
ing the flag on the capitol hung at half-mast, the mourners 
who went about the streets were his fellow-townsmen, who 
had no word of condemnation for him and the rash act 
that ended his career. 

On Saturday morning it began to snow. By Sunday 
afternoon the streets were eighteen inches deep on the 
level, with the heaviest snow-fall of the season. Mrs. 
Pleasants, the widow of a governor of Virginia, and the 
mother of the slain editor, was a member of the Grace 
Street Presbyterian Church, of which Reverend Doctor 
Stiles was then pastor. The funeral services were held 
there on Sunday, at 3 o'clock p.m. By two the side- 
walks were blocked by a crowd of silent spectators, and, 
half an hour later, every seat in the church, except those 
reserved for the family and immediate friends of the de- 
ceased, was filled. After these had taken their places, 
there was not standing-room in aisles or galleries. The 
sermon was an eloquent tribute to the private virtues and 
the public services of the deceased. One memorable ex- 
tract is inscribed upon the monument erected by admirers 
and friends over his grave in Shockoe Hill Cemetery: 

Kllitb a (3eniu0 above talent, a Courage 
above Iberolsm 

None ever forgot the scene who saw the long line of funeral 
carriages winding, hke a black stream, through streets 
where the snow came up to the axles, under the low-hang- 
ing sky that stooped heavily and gloomed into leaden gray 

182 



A NOTABLE AFFAIR OF HONOR 

by the time the cortege reached the cemetery. And all 
the afternoon the brooding air throbbed with the toHing 
bells. 

We said and believed that Richmond had never known 
so sad a day since she went into mourning for the three- 
score victims of the burning of the theatre in 1811. 

The trial of Thomas Ritchie for murder in the first, and 
of the seconds as "principals in the second degree," fol- 
lowed the duel with swiftness amazing to the reader of 
criminal cases in our age. On March 31, 1846, four of the 
ablest lawyers in Virginia appeared in court to defend the 
prisoner. 

The old brochure which records the proceedings is curious 
and deeply interesting reading; in nothing more remark- 
able than in the defence of what was admitted to be "an 
unhappy custom" and directly opposed to the laws of 
the country. 

" The letter of the law is made to yield to the spirit of the 
times" is an italicized sentence in the principal speech of 
the defence. The same speaker dwelt long and earnestly 
upon precedents that paUiated, excused, and warranted the 
time-honored (although "unhappy") practice. 

Not less than fifteen instances of the supremacy of the 
higher law of the "spirit of the times" were drawn from 
English history. 

"In not one of which had there been any prosecu- 
tion. 

"And now, gentlemen of the jury, does any one sup- 
pose that duelling can be suppressed, or capitally punished, 
when the first men in the kingdom — such men as Pitt and 
Fox, and Castlereagh and Canning and Grattan, and 
Nelson and WelHngton, lend the high sanction of their 
names, and feel themselves justified and compelled to peril 
their lives upon a point of honor? And I would ask my 
friend, the Commonwealth's Attorney, if such men as these 

183 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

constitute the 'swordsmen of England/ and were alone 
worthy of the times of Tamerlane and Bajazet? . . . 

"Was Andrew Jackson regarded as a 'swordsman' and 
duellist because he fought, not one, but three duels, and 
once shed the blood of a fellow-man in single combat? He 
was twice elected to the first office in the world, and died 
a Christian, . . . How many of Henry Clay's numerous 
friends in Virginia, and, especially, the religious portion of 
them (including ministers of the Gospel), refused to vote 
for him as President of the United States because he had 
fought two duels? . . . 

"The coroner's inquest held on the body of General 
Hamilton brought in a verdict of wilful murder against 
Aaron Burr, Vice-President of the United States. 

"Colonel Burr afterward took his seat in the Senate of 
the United States as Vice-President; his second, afterward, 
became a judge; and the second of General Hamilton — a 
most amiable and accomplished man — I served with in 
Congress, some years ago. . . . 

"I call upon you, then, gentlemen, by every motive that 
can bind you to a discharge of your duty, to do justice to 
my unfortunate young friend. Bind up the wounds of his 
broken-hearted parents; carry joy and peace and conso- 
lation to his numerous family and friends; wash out the 
stain that has been attempted upon his character and 
reputation, and restore him to his country — as, in truth, he 
is — pure and unspotted." 

The address of the Commonwealth's Attorney is com- 
paratively brief and emphatically half-hearted. We are 
entirely prepared for the announcement in smaller type at 
the foot of the last page: 

"The argument on both sides" (!) "having been con- 
cluded, the jury took the case, and, without leaving the 
box, returned a verdict of 'Not guilty!' 

"The verdict was received by the large auditory with 

184 



A NOTABLE AFFAIR OF HONOR 

loud manifestations of applause. Order was promptly com- 
manded by the officers of the court. 

"Mr. Ritchie then left the court-house, accompanied by 
the greater portion of the spectators, who seemed eager to 
shake hands with him and to congratulate him upon his 
honorable acquittal." 



XVIII 

THE MENACE OF SLAVE INSURRECTION 

"Richmond, June Sth, 1847. 

" Dear Effie, — It is past ten o'clock, and a rainy night. 
Just such a one as would make a comfortable bed and a 
sound snooze no mean objects of desire. 

"George Moody, alias 'The Irresistible,' arrived this after- 
noon, and will leave in the morning, and I cannot let so good 
an opportunity of writing to you escape. I must scribble a 
brief epistle. 

"The drive down from Powhatan was delightful. I found 
Mr. Belt extremely pleasant, full of anecdote, a great talker, 
yet, withal — as Mr. Miller had told me — a good listener. A 
very necessary qualification, by-the-way, for any one with 
whom I may chance to be in company. 

"The first thing I heard when I reached home was tidings 
of that worst of bugbears to a Southern woman — an impend- 
ing insurrection. A double guard was on duty at the capitol, 
and a detachment of military from the armory paraded the 
streets all night. I was, I confess, somewhat alarmed, and 
not a little startled, but gradually my fears wore away, and 
I slept as soundly that night as if no such thing were in 
agitation. 

"'Puss Sheppard was in to supper, and her parting saluta- 
tion to us at going was : ' Farewell ! If I am alive in the morn- 
ing I will come and see if you are!' 

"The whole matter ended, like Mr. C.'s sermon — 'just where 
it began — viz., in nothing.' 

"Richmond is rather dull at present. The Texas excite- 
ment has subsided almost entirely, and those who gave cre- 

186 



THE MENACE OF SLAVE INSURRECTION 

dence to the report of the insurrection are desirous to keep 
as still as possible. 

"Morning. — I can write no more. I am sure your good- 
nature will acquit me of blame so far as matter, chirography, 
and quality go, when I tell you that I have written this partly 
by the light of a lamp which finally went out, self-extinguished 
for want of oil, and partly this morning, when I am suffering 
with a sick-headache. I feel more like going to bed than 
writing, but 'The Unexceptionable' is about to take his de- 
parture, and waits for this. Write soon and much. I will 
try to treat you better next time." 

There is much reading between the lines to be done for 
the right comprehension of that letter. My genre pictures 
of days that are no more would be incomplete were I to 
fail to touch upon the "worst of bugbears" I feigned to 
pass over lightly. 

In the debate upon the abolition of slavery in my native 
State, lost by one vote in the Legislature of 1831-32, while 
Nat Turner's insm'rection was fresh in the public mind, 
John Randolph declared, "Whenever the fire-alarm rings 
in Richmond every mother clasps her baby closer to her 
breast." 

I cannot recollect when the whisper of the possibility of 
"Insurrection" (we needed not to specify of what kind) 
did not send a sick chill to my heart. The menace I here 
dismiss with a sentence or two was the most serious that 
had loomed upon my horizon. I could not trust myself 
to dwell upon it within the two days that had elapsed since 
my return from a vacation month in Powhatan. How 
keenly every circumstance attending it was bitten into my 
mind is proved by the distinctness of the etching preserved 
by a memory that has let many things of greater mo- 
ment escape its hold. 

My host, Mr. D., had come in to dinner the day before 
that set for my stage-journey back to town, with the pleasing 

187 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

intelligence that Mr. Lloyd Belt, a former citizen of Pow- 
hatan, but for twenty years a resident of Richmond, was 
"going down" — Richmond was always "down," as Lon- 
don is "up" from every part of England — the next day, 
and would be glad to take me in his carriage. As I wrote 
to Effie, the drive was delightful. My courtly escort took 
as much pains to entertain me as if I had been a belle and 
a beauty, instead of an unformed school-girl. It was a 
way they had — those gentlemen of the Old School — of 
recognizing the woman in every baby-girl, and doing it 
honor. 

It did not strike me as strange that Mr. Belt beguiled 
the thirty-mile journey with anecdote and disquisition. 
He was charming. I never thought that he was likewise 
condescending. I am quite as sure that the idea did not 
enter his knightly imagination. 

As we drove leisurely up Main Street from the bridge, 
we noticed that groups of men stood on the street corners 
and in the doors of stores, chatting gravely, and, it would 
seem, confidentially. 

"There must be news from the seat of war!" opined my 
companion. 

The Mexican War was then in progress, and accompany- 
ing raids into the debatable territory of Texas kept public 
sentiment in a ferment. 

My father and the rest of the family, with a couple of 
neighbors, were enjoying the cool of the day upon our 
front porch. He came down to the gate to assist me to 
alight. So did Mr. Strobia, our elderly next-door neigh- 
bor, and he handed me up the steps while my father lin- 
gered to thank my escort for bringing me safely home. In 
the joyous confusion of greetings, I had not observed that 
Mr. Belt was leaning down from the carriage to my father's 
ear, and that both were very grave, until Puss Sheppard, 
like the rattlepate she was, whispered loudly to Mr. Strobia: 

188 



I 



THE MENACE OF SLAVE INSURRECTION 

"Fm scared to death! What is the latest news? You 
men won't tell us." 

"I have heard no news about anjrtliing or anybody!" 
ejaculated the old gentleman, testily and loudly, glancing 
over his shoulder at Gilbert, who had my trunk on his 
shoulder and was carrying it in at the side-gate. "Upon 
my soul, I haven't !" And as she caught his arm and swung 
around to get the truth from his eyes, he bustled down the 
steps and so on home. 

I had the tale in full by the time my bonnet was off. 
Mea, on one side, and Puss on the other, poured it forth 
in excited whispers, having closed "the chamber" door. 
Abolitionists had been at work among the negroes in Hen- 
rico and Hanover counties for weeks. There were indica- 
tions of an organized conspiracy (in scope and detail so like 
the plot for which John Brown's blood paid twelve years 
thereafter, that I bethought me of it when the news from 
Harper's Ferry stunned the nation), and the city was 
under arms. Governor Smith was said to have issued a 
proclamation to militia and citizens at large in Latin. 

I laughed there. 

'"Extra Billy!' He knows less of Latin than of Choc- 
taw!" 

The worthy functionary had earned the sobriquet by 
superdiligence in the matter of extra baggage while in the 
service of a stage-coach company, and as he was a Demo- 
crat we never forgot it. 

"Let that pass!" said Mea, impatiently. "We can't get 
away from the fact that where there is so much smoke 
there must be a little fire. Some evil business is on foot, 
and all the servants know what it is, whether we do or not." 

I felt that she was right when Mary Anne and "Mammy," 
Gilbert, Tom, his assistant, and my little maid Paulina, 
with black Molly, Percy's nurse, trooped in, one after the 
other, to welcome "Miss Firginny" home. They had done 

189 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the like ever since I was born. I should have felt hurt and 
angry had they failed in the ceremony. My sharpened 
senses detected something that was overdone in manner 
and speech. They were too glad to see me, and while they 
protested, I discerned sarcasm in their grins, a sinister roll 
in hvely eyeballs. 

We talked fast over the supper-table, and of all manner 
of things irrelevant to the topic uppermost in our thoughts. 
Once, while Gilbert and his half-grown subaltern were out 
of the room, I ventured a hasty whisper to my father, at 
whose right I sat: 

"Father, have we any arms in the house if they should 
come?" 

Without turning his head, he saw, out of the tail of his 
eye, Gilbert on the threshold, a plate of hot waffles in hand, 
and Tom at his heels bearing a pitcher of fresh water. My 
father reached out a deliberate hand for a slice of bread 
from a plate near his elbow. 

"All that I have to say, my daughter" (his speech as 
deliberate as his hand, and every syllable sharp and clear), 
"is that we are prepared for them, come when and how 
they may." 

A perceptible shiver, as when one catches breath after 
an electric shock, ran around the table. All felt that he 
had thrown down the gauntlet, and was ready to take the 
consequences. My heart leaped up as an elastic bough 
from the weight that had bowed it to the earth. It was 
no effort after that to be gay. I told stories of my country- 
sojourn, retailed the humors of the visit to our old neigh- 
borhood, mimicking this and that rustic, telling of comical 
sayings of the colored people who pressed me with queries 
as to town life — in short, unbottled a store of fun and 
gossip that lasted until bedtime. Then, as I told my 
correspondent, I went to bed and slept the sleep of youth, 
health, and an easy mind. 

190 



THE MENACE OF SLAVE INSURRECTION 

And this because he who never Hed to me had said that 
he was "prepared" for the assassins, come when they 
might. 

A week later, when the fireless smoke had vanished quite 
from, the horizon, and we dared jest at the "scare," I asked 
my mother what arsenal my father had had in reserve that 
he could speak so confidently of preparation for midnight 
attack and domestic treachery. 

"Nothing more formidable than a carving-knife," she 
answered, merrily, "and courage that has always served 
him in the hour of peril. He was not alarmed. I beheve 
he would face a hundred negroes with no other weapon 
than his bare hands." 

I am often asked why, if our family servants were really 
and warmly attached to us, we should have let the "bug- 
bear" poison our pleasures and haunt our midnight visions. 
To the present hour I am conscious of a peculiar stricture 
of the heart that stops my breath for a second, at the sud- 
den blast of a hunter's horn in the country. Before I was 
eight years old I had heard the tale of Gabriel's projected 
insurrection, and of the bloodier outbreak of murderous 
fury led by Nat Turner, the petted favorite of a trusting 
master. Heard that the signal of attack in both cases 
was to be "a trumpet blown long and loud." Again and 
again, on my visits to country plantations, I have been 
thrown into a paroxysm of terror when awakened from 
sleep in the dead of night, by the sound of the horns carried 
by "coon hunters" in their rounds of the woods nearest us. 
I could not have been over ten, when, on a visit to "Lethe," 
a homestead occupied for a while by Uncle Carus, I was 
rambling in the garden soon after sunrise, picking roses, 
and let them fall from nerveless fingers at the ringing blast 
of a "trumpet blown long and loud", from the brow of a 
neighboring hill. As it pealed louder and longer, until the 
blue welkin above me repeated the sound, I fled as fast 

191 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

as my freezing feet would carry me, to the deepest recesses 
of the graveyard at the foot of the garden, and hid in a 
tangle of wild raspberry bushes higher than my head. 
There I lay, wet with the dews of the past night, and my 
face and hands scratched to bleeding, until the winding 
horn grew faint and fainter, and the bay of a pack of hounds 
told me what a fool panic had made of me. We always 
thought of the graveyard as an asylum in the event of a 
rising. No negro would venture to enter it by day or 
night. 

In any ordinary period of danger or distress, I would 
have trusted my life in the hands of the men and women 
who had been born on the same plantation with my 
mother, and the younger generation, to whom she had been 
a faithful and benignant friend from their cradles. In fire 
and flood and tempest; in good report and evil report; in 
sickness and in health; in poverty, as in riches — they would 
have stood with, and for us to the death. We knew 
them to be but children of a larger growth, passionate and 
unreasoning, facile and impulsive, and fanatical beyond 
anything conceivable by the full-blooded white. The 
superstitious savagery their ancestors had brought from 
barbarous and benighted Africa, was yet in their veins. 
We had heard how Gabriel, a leader in prayer-meetings, 
and encouraged by the whites to do Christian evangeliza- 
tion among his own race, had dehberately meditated and 
written down, as sections of the code to be put into prac- 
tice, when he should come into his kingdom of Lower Vir- 
ginia — a plan of murder of all male whites, and a partition 
of the women and girl-children among his followers, 
together with arson and tortures exceeding the deviltries 
of the red Indians. We had heard from the lips of eye- 
witnesses, scenes succeeding the Southampton massacre of 
every white within the reach of the murderous horde 
howling at the heels of the negro preacher whom his 

192 



THE MENACE OF SLAVE INSURRECTION 

master had taught to read and write — how the first victim 
of the uprising, in the name of God and freedom, was that 
master as he lay asleep at his wife's side. Of how coolly 
— even complacently — Turner recorded: "He sprang up, 
calling his wife's name. It was his last word. A single 
blow was sufficient to kill him. We forgot a baby that 
was asleep in the cradle, but Hark went back and dis- 
patched it." 

In every plan of rising against their masters. Religion 
was a potent element. It was, to their excitable im- 
aginations, a veritable Holy War, from which there would 
be no discharge. The "Mammy" who had nursed her 
mistress's baby at her own bosom, would brain it, with the 
milk yet wet upon its lips, if bidden by the "prophet" to 
make the sacrifice. Nat Turner split with his axe the 
skull of a boy he had carried in his arms scores of times, 
and stayed not his hand, although the little fellow met him 
with a happy laugh and outstretched arms and the cry, 
"Uncle Nat, you have come to give me a ride! Haven't 
you?" 

I repeat, we knew with what elements we should have 
to deal if the "rising" ever took an organized form. This 
ever-present knowledge lay at the root of the hatred of the 
"abolition movement." To the Northerner, dwelling at 
ease among his own people, it was — except to the leaders — 
an abstract principle. "All men are created free and 
equal" — a slaveholder had written before his Northern 
brother emancipated his unprofitable serfs. Ergo, rea- 
soned the Northern brother, in judicial survey of the in- 
creasing race, whose labor was still gainful to tobacco and 
wheat planter, the negro slave had a right to "hberty and 
the pursuit of happiness." 

He did not count the cost of a consmnmation devoutly 
to be desired. He had no occasion to meditate upon the 
bloody steps by which the enslaved and alien race would 

193 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

climb to the height the Abolitionist would stimulate him 
to attain. 

So well was it understood that a mother ran dangerous 
risks if she put her child into the care of the colored woman 
who complained that she " was tired of that sort of work," 
that neglect of such dislike of a nurse's duties was considered 
foolhardy. I heard a good old lady, who owned so many 
servants that she hired a dozen or so to her neighbors, 
lament that Mrs. Blank "did not mind what I told her 
about Frances' determination not to take care of children. 
I hired the girl to her as a chambermaid, and gave her fair 
warning that she just would not be a nurse. A baby was 
born when Frances had been there four months, and she 
was set to nurse it. You must have heard the dreadful 
story? Perhaps you saw it in the papers. When the child 
was six months old the wretched creature pounded glass 
and put it in the baby's milk. The child died, and the girl 
was hanged." 

Ugly stories, these, but so true in every particular that 
I cannot leave them out of my chronicle of real life and the 
workings of what we never thought, then, of calling "the 
peculiar institution." 

One of my most distinct recollections of the discussions 
of Slavery held in my hearing is that my saintly Aunt 
Betsy said, sadly and thoughtfully: 

"One thing is certain— we will have to pay for the great 
sin of having them here. How, or when, God alone knows." 

"We did not bring them to Virginia!" was my mother's 
answer. "And I, for one, wish they were all back in 
Africa. But what can we do, now that they are on our 
hands?" 

Before turning to other and pleasanter themes, let me 
say that my father, after consultation with the wife who 
had brought to him eight or ten "family servants" as part 
of her father's estate, resolved to free them and send them 

194 



THE MENACE OF SLAVE INSURRECTION 

to Liberia at his own expense. This was in my early child- 
hood, yet I recollect how the scheme failed through the 
obstinate refusal of the slaves to leave master, home, and 
country for freedom in a strange land. They clung to my 
mother's knees, and prayed her, with wild weeping, not to 
let them go. They had blood relatives and dear friends 
here; their children had intermarried with men and women 
in different parts of the county; their grandfathers and 
great-grandfathers had left them no legacy of memories 
that would draw them toward the far-off country which was 
but the echo of an empty name to their descendants. They 
were comfortable and happy here. Why send them, for 
no fault of theirs, into exile? 

"There is something in what they say!" my father had 
said to my mother, in reviewing the scene. "I cannot see 
that anything is left for us to do except to keep on as we 
are, and wait for further indications of the Divine will." 

This was in the thirties, not many years after an 
act of gradual emancipation was lost in the Legislature by 
the pitiful majority I named in an earlier paragraph. A 
score of years had passed since that momentous debate in 
our capitol, and our Urim and Thummin had not signified 
that we could do anything better than to "keep on as we 
were." 

It would be idle to say that we were not, from time to 
time, aware that a volcano slumbered fitfully beneath us. 
There were dark sides to the Slavery Question, for master, 
as for slave. 

14 



XIX 

WEDDING AND BRIDESMAID — THE ROUTINE OF A LARGE 
FAMILY — MY FIRST BEREAVEMENT 

In the summer of 1851, my grandmother had bought and 
given to her only child the house which was to be our home 
as long as we remained a resident family in Richmond. 
Of this house I shall have a story to tell in the next chap- 
ter. It stands upon Leigh Street (named for the dis- 
tinguished lawyer of whom we have heard in these pages as 
taking a part in the Clay campaign), and the locality was 
then quietly, but eminently, aristocratic. There were few 
new houses, and the old had a rural, rather than an urban, 
air. Each had its garden, stocked with shrubbery and flow- 
ers. Some had encompassing lawns and outlying copses 
of virgin native growth. 

The new home held a large family. The stately old 
dame who had settled us for life, occupied a sunny front 
chamber, and in addition to our household proper, we 
had had with us, for two years, my mother's widowed 
brother-in-law, "Uncle" Car us, and the stepdaughter for 
whose sake we had consented to receive him. My aunt had 
died soon after her youngest child (Anne) was taken to a 
Better Country ; Cousin Paulina went a year later, and as 
the mother's parting request to the eldest of her flock 
was that she would "take care of her father," separation 
was not to be thought of. None of us loved the lonely 
old man. One and all, we loved her who was a younger 
sister to our mother, and a second mother to her children. 

So we sat down to our meals every day, a full dozen, all 

196 



WEDDING AND BRIDESMAID 

told, and as we were seldom without a visitor, we must 
have been "thirteen at table", times without number. If 
we had ever heard the absurd superstition that would have 
forbidden it, we never gave it a thought. I should not 
have liked to meet my father's frown and hear his com- 
ment, had the matter been broached in his hearing. 

The modern (nominal) mistress would be horrified at the 
thought of twelve eaters, drinkers, and sleepers under the 
roof of a private house. We descried nothing out of the 
way in it, and fared exceeding comfortably from year's 
end to year's end. Large families were still respectable in 
the public eye, and an increase in the number of domestics 
kept the addition to the white family from bearing hard 
upon the housemother. 

How gayly and smoothly the little craft of my life moved 
on up to the middle of '53, let a few passages from a letter 
dated July 23d of that year, testify: 

"I came back from the mountains on the 2d of this 
month. I had a charmhig visit at Piedmont. I believe I 
left warm friends behind me when I reluctantly said 'Good- 
bye' to the hospitable abode. I was the only young lady on 
the plantation, and there were four grown brothers and a 
cousin or two. Each had his pet riding-horse, which he 'must 
have me try.' I had rides, morning and evening, and once 
at high noon. In June! Think of it! I won't teli you which 
Rosinante I preferred. You might have a notion that his 
master shared his honors, and these shrewd guesses are in- 
convenient sometimes. The very considerate gallants found 
out, 'by the merest chance,' that it made me sick to ride in a 
closed carriage, and, of course, as there were two buggies on 
the place, there was 'tall' bidding as to which I should dis- 
tinguish by accepting a seat in it. Sarah C., her mother, 
and sister were kindness itself to me. I was quite ashamed 
of my un worthiness of such petting. . . . 

"I got home just in time to help Mea with the preparations 
for her Northern trip, and to get ready for Sarah Ragland's 

197 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

wedding — an event that had its influence in shaping my sum- 
mer plans. 

"We enjoyed the 'occasion' heartily. How could I do 
otherwise when my attendant groomsman was ordered for 
the affair from Charlottesville? — the very youth who smote 
my already beriddled heart when I was up in that region. 
He is a cousin of the Raglands — Charley Massie by name — and 
the arrangement was Mary's (bless her heart!). Mr. Bud- 
well, the bridegroom, was indisputably the handsomest man 
in the room. This was as it should be; but I never attended 
another wedding where this could be said with truth. My 
knight was the next best-looking, and for once I was content 
with a second-best article." 

I allude in this letter to "Cousin Mollie's" illness, but 
with no expression of anxiety as to the result. She had 
been delicate ever since I could recollect anything. She 
went to Saratoga every summer, and now and then to 
Florida in the winter. The only intimation I ever had 
from her as to the cause of her continued singlehood was 
in answer to the girlish outburst: "Cousin Mary, you must 
have been beautiful when you were young! You will al- 
ways be charming. I can't comprehend why you have 
never married!" 

Her speech was ever even and sweet. I detected a ring 
of impatience or of pain in it, as she said: "Why should I 
marry. Namesake? To get a nurse for life?" 

I had suspected all along that she had a history known 
to none of us. After that I knew it, and asked no more 
questions. 

Patient, brave, unselfishly heroic — 

"The sweetest soul 
That ever looked with human eyes," 

— she lingered day after day, now weaker, now rallying, 
until she spoke her own conviction to me one day in late 

198 



THE ROUTINE OF A LARGE FAMILY 

July, as I sat by, fanning her, and no one else was pres- 
ent. 

I smiled as she opened her large dark eyes, the only 
beauty left in the wasted face, and saw me. 

"You are better, dear! We shall have you up and out 
driving before long." 

"No, dear child!" — infinite weariness in tone and look. 
"The old clock has run clean down!" 

I did not believe it, and I said it stoutly aloud, and to 
myself. 

She seemed no more languid — only drowsy — the next 
afternoon, as I fluttered into the room and leaned over her 
in a glow of excitement: 

"Cousin Mollie, darling! I have come in to say that 
Junius Fishburn is down-stairs. He is in town for a day 
on his way to Newport." 

The great eyes opened wide, a smile lighted them into 
liveliness. 

"Oh, I am so glad!" she gasped. 

She was "glad" of everything that gave me pleasure. I 
had never doubted that. I had never gone to her with a 
pain or a pleasure without getting my greedy fill of sym- 
pathy. 

When I had said a hearty "bon voyage .' " to my caller, I 
went back to tell her of the interview. She was dying. 
We watched by her from evening to morning twilight. 

Ned Rhodes, who was in Boston when he got my letter, 
telling briefly what had come to us, sent me lines I read 
then for the first time. Had the writer shared that vigil 
with us, he could not have described it more vividly : 

"We watched her breathing thro' the night. 
Her breathing soft and low, 
As in her breast the wave of life 
Kept heaving to and fro, 
199 



t>^ 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Our very hopes belied our fears, 

Our fears our hopes behed: 
We thought her dying while she slept, 
And sleeping when she died." 

At midnight there was a rally for a few minutes. I was 
wetting the dry lips, leaning over the pillow, so that she 
looked into my eyes in unclosing hers. A smile of heavenly 
sweetness played over her face — a ray that irradiated, with- 
out moving a feature or line. The poor mouth stirred ever 
so slightly. I bent closer to it to hear the whisper: 

"I'm almost there!" 

Two months later I wrote to my old friend : 

"Our great sorrow in July was my first affliction. Yet I 
was wonderfully supported under it, and the terrible desolation 
that has grown upon us, instead of lessening. I say 'sup- 
ported/ for not once have I wished her back; but I miss her 
— oh, so sadly! 

"'1 cannot make her dead!* 

"Then mother went to the country for a month, and I 
was left as housekeeper, with the whole care of the family 
on my hands. Rising betimes to preside at father's early 
breakfast, pickling, preserving, sewing, overseeing the ser- 
vants, etcetera. 

"Enough of this! Although the little girls' lessons begin 
again to-day, and I have my sister's domestic and social duties 
to perform in addition to my own, I have more leisure than 
you might think, and you shall have the benefit of a spare 
half-hour on this bright Monday morning. (Alice practising, 
meanwhile, in the same room!) 

"Mea is still in Boston and the vicinity, and will not return 
for a month or more. Lizzie M. is to be married late in Octo- 
ber or early in November, and wishes to have Mea with her. 
Another of the three Lizzies, and the prettiest — Lizzie N. — 
married last week a Mr. L. — a nice young man, Mea says. I 
have never seen him, although they have been engaged for 

200 



MY FIRST BEREAVEMENT 

some time. He has taken up his abode in Boston, to keep his 
lovely wife with her invalid mother. 

"And while upon marriage — E. G. is to wed on October 
11th, Mr. R. H., one of ten brothers. She is 'doing very- 
well,' say the gossips. 

"Sarah and Mr. Budwell are at home again, he handsomer 
than ever, while she looks prettier and happier than she ever 
was before. 

"While retailing news, let me chronicle the arrival of Master 
Robert Wallace Courtney, an interesting youth, who — as father 
dryly remarked, when I said that he 'came from a foreign 
shore'— 'speaks the language of the Cry-mea.' 

"Heigho! so goes this mad world of ours: death; marriage; 
birth. Ranks are mowed do^vn, and filled up as soon. Few 
of us appreciate what a fearful thing it is tcr die, and fewer 
yet how awful it is to live — writing our histories by our actions 
in the Book of God's Remembrance, a stroke for every word, 
movement, and thought! Again I say, if Death be fearful. 
Life is awful! 

"We are prone to forget, as one and another fall, and the 
chasm is closed up and Life seems the same — except within 
the bleeding hearts of mourners — that our day is coming as 
surely as those others have gone. In effect, we arrogate im- 
mortality for ourselves, 

"The longer I live, and the more I see of the things that 
perish with the using, the more firmly persuaded am I that 
there is but one reality in life, and that is Religion, Why not 
make it an every-day business ? Since the loving care of the 
Father is the only thing that may not be taken from us, why 
do we not look to it for every joy, and cling to it for every 
comfort? . . . 

"Write soon. Will you not co?nc to me ? I am very lonely 
at times. One sister gone! Another absent! 

"I am wondering if you have changed as much as I feel 
that I have? It is not natural to suppose that you have. 
You have not the same impression of added responsibility, 
the emulation to throw yourself into the breach made by the 
removal of one so beloved, and, in her quiet way, exercising 

201 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

so much influence. If I could but hope that patience and 
prayerful watchfulness would ever make me 'altogether such 
an one' as she was! 

"How many and how happy have been the meetings in 
heaven since I last saw you! Dear little Sallie B. ! How 
often in fancy do I see her walk away in the moonlight night 
of our parting! I never look from the front window in the 
evening without recalling that hour." 



XX 

OUR TRUE FAMILY GHOST-STORY 

One evening of the winter following the events recorded 
in the last chapter, "Ned" Rhodes and I had spent a cosey 
two hours together. My parents never did chaperon duty, 
in the modern acceptation of the word. They made a 
habit, without hinting at it as a duty, of knowing per- 
sonally every man who called upon us. When, as in the 
present case, and it was a common one, the visitor was 
well known to them, and they liked him, both of them came 
into the drawing-room, sat for a half-hour or longer, as the 
spirit moved them, then shpped out, separately, to their 
own sitting-room and books. 

I have drawn Ned Rhodes's picture at length as "Char- 
ley" in Alone. I will only say here that he was my firm 
and leal friend from the time I was twelve years old 
to the time of his death, in the early eighties. 

He had a piece of new music for me to-night, and we fell 
to work with piano and flute soon after my father's exit. 
It was not difficult. The songs and duets that followed 
were familiar to us both. We chatted by the glowing grate 
when we left the piano — gayly and lightly, of nothing in 
particular — the inconsequent gossip of two old and inti- 
mate acquaintances that called for no effort from either. 

I mention this to show that I carried a careless spirit 
and a light heart with me, as I went off in the direction of 
my bedroom, having extinguished the hanging lamp in the 
hall, and taking one of the lamps from the parlor to light 
myself bedward. 

203 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

It was a big, square Colonial house, with much waste of 
space in the matter of halls and passages. The entrance- 
hall on the first floor was virtually a reception-room, and 
nearly as large as any apartment on that level. It was cut 
across the left side by an archway, filled with Venetian 
blinds and door. Beyond these was a broad, easy stair- 
way, dropping, by a succession of landings, to the lower 
from the upper story. Directly opposite the front doQf 
was a second and narrower arch, the door in which was, 
likewise, of Venetian slats. This led to the rooms at the 
back of the house. The plan of the second floor was the 
same. On this eventful night I passed through the smaller 
archway, closing the door behind me. It had a spring 
latch that clicked into place as I swung it to. The bed- 
room I shared with my sister, who was not at home that 
night, was directly across the passage from that occupied 
by our parents. A line of light under their door proved 
that they were still up, and I knocked. 

"Come in!" called both, in unison. 

My mother, wrapped in her dressing-gown, lay back in 
her rocking-chair, her book closed upon her finger. My 
father had laid aside his coat, and stood on the rug, winding 
his watch. 

"I was hoping that you would look in," he said. "I 
wanted to ask what that new piano-and-flute piece is. I 
like it!" 

We exchanged a few sentences on the subject; I kissed 
both good-night, and went out into the hall, humming, as 
I went, the air that had caught his fancy. 

The lamp in my hand had two strong burners. Gas had 
not then been introduced into private dwellings in Rich- 
mond. We used what was sold as "burning fluid," in il- 
luminating our houses — something less gross than camphene 
or oil, and giving more light than either. I carried the 
lamp in front of me, so that it threw a bright light upon 

204 



OUR TRUE FAMILY GHOST-STORY 

the door across the passage, here a Httle over six feet wide. 
As I shut the door of my mother's room, I saw, as distinctly 
as if by dayhght, a small woman in gray start out of 
the opposite door, ghde noiselessly along the wall, and dis- 
appear at the Venetian blinds giving upon the big front hall. 

I have reviewed that moment and its incident a thousand 
times, in the effort to persuade myself that the apparition 
was an optical illusion or a trick of fancy. 

The thousandth-and-first attempt results as did the first. 
I shut my eyes to see — always the one figure, the same 
motion, the same disappearance. 

She was dressed in gray; she was small and lithe; her 
head was bowed upon her hands, and she sHpped away, 
hugging the wall, as in flight, vanishing at the closed door. 
The door I had heard latch itself five minutes ago ! Which 
did not open to let her through! I recall, as clearly as I 
see the apparition, what I thought in the few seconds that 
flew by as I stood to watch her. I was not in the least 
frightened at first. My young maid, Pauhna, a bright 
mulatto of fifteen, had more than once that winter fallen 
asleep upon the rug before my fire, when she went into the 
room to see that all was in readiness for my retiring. The 
servants slept in buildings detached from the main resi- 
dence, a custom to which I have referred before. 

"The house" was locked up by my father's own hands 
at ten o'clock, unless there were some function to keep one 
or more of the servants up and on duty. Therefore, when 
I had twice awakened Paulina from her unlawful slumber, 
I had sent her off to the "offices" — in English parlance — 
with a sharp reproof and warning against a repetition of 
the offence. My instant thought now was: 

"The little minx has been at it again!" The next, "She 
went like a cat!" The third, in a lightning flash, "She did 
not open the door to go through!" Finally — "Nor did 
she open the door when she came out of my room!" 

205 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I had never, up to that instant, known one thrill of 
supernatural dread since I was old enough to give full 
credence to my father's assurances that there were no 
such things as ghosts, and to laugh at the tales told by 
ignorant negroes to frighten one another, and to awe white 
children. I had never been afraid of the darkness or of 
solitude. I would take my doll and book to the grave- 
yard and spend whole happy afternoons there, because it 
was quiet and shady, and nobody would interrupt study 
or dream. 

It was, then, the stress of extraordinary emotion which 
swept me back into the room I had just quitted, and bore 
me up to the table by which my mother sat, there to set 
down the lamp I could scarcely hold, enunciating hoarsely: 

"I have seen a ghost!" 

My father wheeled sharply about. 

"Whatr 

At that supreme moment, the influence of his scornful 
dislike to every species of superstition made me "hedge," 
and falter, in articulating, "If there is such a thing as a 
ghost, I have seen one!" 

Before I could utter another sound he had caught up 
the lamp and was gone. Excited, and almost blind and 
dumb as I was, I experienced a new sinking of heart as I 
heard him draw back the bolt of the door through which 
the Thing had passed, without unclosing it. He explored 
the whole house, my mother and I sitting, silent, and listen- 
ing to his swift tramp upon floor and stairs. In a few 
minutes the search was over. 

He was perfectly calm in returning to us. 

"There is nobody in the house who has not a right to be 
here. And nobody awake except ourselves." 

Setting down the lamp, he put his hand on my head — 
his own, and almost only, form of caress. 

" Now, daughter, try and tell us what you think you saw ?" 

206 



OUR TRUE FAMILY GHOST-STORY 

Grateful for the unlooked-for gentleness, I rallied to 
tell the story simply and without excitement. When I 
had finished, he made no immediate reply, and I looked 
up timidly. 

"I really saw it, father, just as I have said! At least, 
I believe I did!" 

"I know it, my child. But we will talk no more of it 
to-night. I will go to your room with you." 

He preceded me with the lamp. When we were in my 
chamber, he looked under the bed (how did he guess that 
I should do it as soon as his back was turned, if he had not?). 
Then he carried the light into the small dressing-room 
behind the chamber. I heard him open the doors of a 
wardrobe that stood there, and try the fastenings of a 
window. 

"There is nothing to harm you here," he said, coming 
back, and speaking as gently as before. "Now, try not 
to think of what you believe you saw. Say your prayers 
and go to bed, like a good, brave girl!" 

He kissed me again, putting his arm around me and, 
holding me to him tenderly, said "Good-night," and went 
out. 

I was ashamed of my fright — heartily ashamed! Yet I 
was afraid to look in the mirror while I undid and combed 
my hair and put on my night-cap. When, at last, I dared 
put out the light, I scurried across the floor, plunged into 
bed, and drew the blankets tightly over my head. 

My father looked sympathizingly at my heavy eyes 
next morning when I came down to prayers. After break- 
fast he look me aside and told me to keep what I had 
seen to myself. 

"Neither your mother nor I will speak of it in the hear- 
ing of the children and servants. You may, of course, 
take your sister into your confidence. She may be trusted. 
But my opinion is that the fewer who know of a thing that 

207 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

seems unaccountable, the better. And your sister is more 
nervous than you." 

Thus it came about that nothing was said to Mea, and 
that we three who knew of the visitation did not discuss it, 
and tried honestly not to think of it. 

Until, perhaps a month after my fright, about nine o'clock, 
one wet night, my mother entered the chamber where my 
father and I were talking over political news, as we still 
had a habit of doing, and said, hurriedly, glancing nerv- 
ously behind her: 

"I have seen Virginia's ghost!" 

She saw it, just as I had described, issuing from the 
closed door and gliding away close to the wall, then vanish- 
ing at the Venetian door. 

"It was all in gray," she reported, "but with something 
white wrapped about the head. It is very strange!" 

Still we held our peace. My father's will was law, and 
he counselled discretion. 

"We will await further developments," he said, orac- 
ularly. 

Looking back, I think it strange that the example of 
his cool fearlessness so far wrought upon me that I would 
not allow the mystery to prey upon my spirits, or to make 
me afraid to go about the house as I had been wont to do. 
Once my father broke the reserve we maintained, even to 
each other, by asking if I would like to exchange my 
sleeping-room for another. 

"Why should I?" I interrogated, trying to laugh. "We 
are not sure where she goes after she leaves it. It is some- 
thing to know that she is no longer there." 

Mea had to be taken into confidence after she burst 
into the drawing-room at twilight, one evening, and shut 
the door, setting her back against it and trembling from 
head to foot. She was as white as a sheet, and when she 
spoke, it was in a whisper. Something had chased her 

208 



OUR TRUE FAMILY GHOST-STORY 

down-stairs, she declared. The hall-lamp was burning, 
and she could see, by looking over her shoulder, that the 
halls and stairs were empty but for her terrified self. But 
Something — Somebody — in high-heeled shoes, that went 
''Tap! tap! tap!" on the oaken floor and staircase, was 
behind her from the time she left the upper chamber where 
she had been dressing, until she reached the parlor door. 
Her nerves were not as stout as mine, perhaps, but she 
was no coward, and she was not given to foolish imagina- 
tions. When we told her what had been seen, she took a 
more philosophical view of the situation than I was able 
to do. 

"Bodiless things can't hurt bodies!" she opined, and 
readily joined our secret circle. 

Were we, as a family, as I heard a woman say when we 
were not panic-stricken at the rumored approach of yellow- 
fever, "a, queer lot, taken altogether"? I think so, some- 
times. 

The crisis came in February of that same winter. 

My sister AUce and a young cousin who was near her 
age — fourteen — were sent off to bed a little after nine one 
evening, that they might get plenty of "beauty sleep." 
Passing the drawing-room door, which was ajar, they were 
tempted to enter by the red gleam of the blazing fire of soft 
coal. Nobody else was there to enjoy it, and they sat them 
down for a school-girlish talk, prolonged until the far-off 
cry "All's well!" of the sentinel at the "Barrack" on 
Capitol Square told the conscience - smitten pair that it 
was ten o'clock. Going into the hall, they were surprised 
to find it dark. We found afterward that the servant 
whose duty it was to fill the lamp had neglected it, and it 
had burned out. It was a brilliant moonlight night, and 
the great window on the lower landing of the staircase was 
unshuttered. The arched door dividing the two halls was 
open, and from the doorway of the parlor they had a full 

209 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

view of the stairs. The moonbeams flooded it half-way 
up to the upper landing; and from the dark hall they saw 
a white figure moving slowly down the steps. The mis- 
chievous pair instantly jumped to the conclusion that one 
of "the boys" — my brothers — was on his way, en deshabille, 
to get a drink of water from the pitcher that always stood 
on a table in the reception-room, or main hall. To get it, 
he must pass within a few feet of them, and they shrank 
back into the embrasure of the door behind them, pinching 
each other in wicked glee to think how they would tease 
the boy about the prank next morning. Down the stairs it 
moved, without sound, and slowly, the concealed watchers 
imagined, hstening for any movement that might make 
retreat expedient. They said, afterward, that his night- 
gown trailed on the stairs, also that he might have had 
something white cast over his head. These things did not 
strike them as singular while they watched his progress, 
so full were they of the fun of the adventure. 

It crossed the moonlit landing — an unbroken sheet of 
light — and stepped, yet more slowly, from stair to stair of 
the four that composed the lowermost flight. It was on 
the floor and almost within the archway when the front 
door opened suddenly and in walked the boys, who had 
been out for a stroll. 

In a quarter-second the apparition was gone. As AHce 
phrased it: 

"It did not go backward or forward. It did not sink 
into the floor. It just was notT' 

With wild screams the girls threw themselves upon the 
astonished boys, and sobbed out the story. In the full 
persuasion that a trick had been played upon the frightened 
children, the brothers rushed up-stairs and made a search 
of the premises. The hubbub called every grown member 
of the household to the spot except our deaf grandmother, 
who was fast asleep in her bed up-stairs. 

210 



OUR TRUE FAMILY GHOST-STORY 

Assuming the command which was his right, my father 
ordered all hands to bed so authoritatively that none vent- 
ured to gainsay the edict. In the morning he made light 
to the girls and boys of the whole affair, fairly laughing it 
out of court, and, breakfast over, sent them off to school 
and academy. Then he summoned our mother, my sister, 
and myself to a private conference in "the chamber." 

He began business without preliminaries. Standing on 
the rug, his back to the fire, his hands behind him, in genuine 
English-squirely style, he said, as nearly as I can recall 
his words: 

"It is useless to try to hide from ourselves any longer 
that there is something wrong with this house. I have 
known it for a year and more. In fact, we had not lived 
here three months before I was made aware that some 
mystery hung about it. 

"One windy November night I had gone to bed as usual, 
before your mother finished her book." 

He glanced smilingly at her. Her proclivity for reading 
into the small hours was a family joke. 

"It was a stoiTny night, as I said, and I lay with closed 
eyes, listening to the wind and rain, and thinking over 
next day's business, when somebody touched my feet. 
Somebody — not something ! Hands were laid lightly upon 
them, were lifted and laid in the same way upon my knees, 
and so on until they rested more heavily on my chest, and 
I felt that some one was looking into my face. Up to that 
moment I had not a doubt that it was your mother. Like 
the careful wife she is, she was arranging the covers over 
me to keep out stray draughts. So, when she bent to look 
into my face, I opened my eyes to thank her. 

"She was not there! I was gazing into the empty air. 
The pressure was removed as soon as I lifted my eyelids. 
I raised myself on my elbow and looked toward the fire- 
place. Your mother was deep in her book, her back tow- 
15 211 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ard me. I turned over without sound, and looked under 
the bed from the side next the wall. The firelight and 
lamplight shone through, unobstructed. 

"I speak of this now for the first time. I have never 
opened my lips about it, even to your mother, until this 
moment. But it has happened to me, not once, nor twice, 
nor twenty — but fifty times — maybe more. It is always 
the same thing. The hands — I have settled in my mind 
that they are those of a small woman or of a child, they 
are so little and light — are laid on my feet, then on my 
knees, and travel upward to my chest. There they rest 
for a few seconds, sometimes for a whole minute — I have 
timed them — and something looks into my face and is 
gone! 

"How do I account for it? I don't account for it at all! 
I know that it is! That is all. Shakespeare said, long be- 
fore I was born, that 'there are more things in heaven 
and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.' This is 
one of them. You can see, now, daughter" — turning to 
me — "why I was not incredulous when you brought your 
ghost upon the scene. I have been on the lookout for 
what our spirituaHstic friends call ' further manifestations.' " 
"You believe, then," Mea broke in, "that the girls really 
saw something supernatural on the stairs last night ? Tliat 
it was not a trick of moonlight and imagination?" 

" If we can make them think so, it will be better for them 
than to fill their little brains with ghostly fears. That was 
the reason I took a jesting tone at breakfast-time. I 
charged them, on the penalty of being the laughing-stock 
of all of us, not to speak of it to any one except ourselves. 
I wish you all to take the cue. Moreover, and above every- 
thing else, don't let the servants get hold of it. There 
would be no living in the house with them, if they were to 
catch the idea that it is 'haunted.'" 
He drew his brows into the horseshoe frown that meant 

212 



OUR TRUE FAMILY GHOST-STORY 

annoyance and perplexity. "How I hate the word! You 
girls are old enough to understand that the value of this 
property would be destroyed were this story to creep 
abroad. I would better burn the house down at once 
than to attempt to sell it at any time within the next fifty 
years with a ghost-tale tagged to it. 

"Now, here lies the case! We can talk to outsiders of 
what we have seen and felt and heard in this, our home, 
where your grandmother, your mother and father have 
hoped to live comfortably and to die in peace, or we can 
keep our own counsel like sensible, brave Christians. 
'Bodiless spirits cannot hurt bodies,' and" — the frown 
passing before a humorous gleam — "the little gray lady 
seems to be amiable enough. I can testify that her hands 
are light, and that they pet, not strike. She is timid, too. 
What do you say — all of you? Can we hold our tongues?" 

We promised in one voice. We kept the pledge so well 
that both the girls and the boys were convinced of our 
incredulity. Our father forbade them positively to drop 
a hint of their foolish fancies in the hearing of the servants. 
Young as they were, they knew what stigma would attach 
to a haunted house in the community. As time passed, 
the incident faded from their minds. It was never men- 
tioned in their hearing. 

A year went by without further demonstration on the 
part of the little gray lady, except for two nocturnal visita- 
tions of the small, caressing hands. My father admitted 
this when we questioned him on the subject; but he would 
not talk of it. 

The one comic element connected with the bodiless visit- 
ant was introduced, oddly enough, by our sanctimonious 
clerical uncle-in-law, who now and then paid us visits of 
varying lengths. As he came unannounced, it was not in- 
variably convenient to receive him. On one occasion his 
appearance caused dismay akin to consternation. We 

213 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

were expecting a houseful of younger friends within two 
days, and needed the guest-room he must occupy. He was 
good for a week at the shortest. 

True to the Arab-hke traditions of hospitahty that per- 
vaded all ranks of Old Dominion society, we suffered noth- 
ing of this to appear in our behavior. Nor could he have 
heard the anguished discussion of ways and means that 
went on between Mea and myself late that night. It was, 
therefore, a delightful surprise when he announced, next 
morning, his intention of going out to Olney that day, and 
to remain there for — perhaps a week. He "had let too 
long a time elapse since he had paid the good people there 
a visit. He didn't want them to think he had forgotten 
them." 

One of the "good people," the wife of my mother's 
brother, drove into town to spend the day with us, a week 
after the close of his stay at Olney. "Aunt Sue" was a 
prime favorite with us all, and she was in fine feather to-day, 
full of fun and anecdote. She interrupted a spicy bit of 
family news to say, by-and-by: 

"Did any of you ever suspect that your house is 
haunted?" 

"How ridiculous!" laughed my mother. "Why do you 
ask?" 

The narrator laughed yet more merrily. 

"The funniest thing you ever heard ! The old gentleman 
had an awful scare the last night he was here. I asked 
him what he had eaten — and drunk — for supper that 
evening. But he stuck to it that he was standing at his 
window, looking out into the moonlight in the garden, 
when somebody came up behind him, and took him by the 
elbows and turned him clear around! He felt the two 
hands that grabbed hold of him so plainly that he made 
sure Horace had hidden under the bed and jumped out to 
scare him. So he looked under the bed and in the ward- 

214 



OUR TRUE FAMILY GHOST-STORY 

robe and the closet, and, for all I know, in the bureau 
drawers and under the washstand, for the boy. There was 
nobody in the room but himself, and the door was locked. 
He says he wouldn't sleep in that room another night for 
a thousand dollars." 

"Nobody is hkely to offer it!" retorted Mea, dryly. "I 
have slept there nearly a thousand nights, and nothing 
ever caught hold of me." 

Passing over what might or might not have been a link 
in the true, weird history of our bodiless tenant, I leap a 
chasm of a dozen years to wind up the tale of the "little 
gray lady," so far as it bears directly upon our family. 
After the death of her husband and the marriages of sons 
and daughters left my mother alone in the old colonial 
homestead, she decided to sell it and to live with my 
youngest sister. 

The property was bought as a "Church Home" — a sort 
of orphanage, conducted under the patronage of a prominent 
Episcopal parish renowned for good works. In altering the 
premises to adapt buildings to their new uses, the workmen 
came upon the skeleton of a small woman about four feet 
below the surface of the front yard. She lay less than six 
feet away from the wall of the house, and directly under 
the drawing-room window. There was no sign of coffin or 
coffin-plate. Under her head was a high, richly carved 
tortoise-shell comb, mute evidence that she had not been 
buried in cap and shroud, as was the custom a hundred 
years agone. The oldest inhabitant of a city that is 
tenacious of domestic legends, had never heard of an inter- 
ment in that quarter of a residential and aristocratic 
district. The street, named for the eminent lawyer, must 
have been laid out since the house was built, and may 
have been cut right through grounds, then far more spacious 
than when we bought the place. Even so, the grave was 
dug in the front garden, and so close to the house as to 

215 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

render untenable the theory that the plot was ever part 
of a family burying-ground. 

The papers took inquisitive note of all these circum- 
stances, and let the matter drop as an unexplained mys- 
tery. Within the present occupancy of the house, I have 
heard that the gray lady still walks on moonlight nights, 
and, in gusty midnights, visits the bedside of terrified in- 
mates to press small, light hands upon the feet, and so 
passing upward, to rest upon the chest of the awakened 
sleeper. I was asked by one who had felt them, if I had 
"ever heard the legend that a bride, dressed for her wed- 
ding, fell dead in that upper chamber ages ago." 

My informant could not tell me from whom she had the 
grewsome tale, or the date thereof. "Somebody had told 
her that it happened once upon a time." She knew that 
the unquiet creature still "walked the halls and stairs." 

She should have been "laid" by the decent ceremony of 
burial in consecrated ground, awarded to the exhumed bones. 

I have talked with a grandson of our former next-door 
neighbor, and had from him a circumstantial account of 
the disinterment of the nameless remains. They must 
have lain nearer the turf above them, a century back, than 
when they were found. The young man was a boy when 
he ran to the hole made by the workmen's spades, and 
watched the men bring to light the entire skeleton. He 
verified the story of the high, carved comb. He told me, 
too, of a midnight alarai of screaming children at the vision 
of a little gray lady, walking between the double row of 
beds in the dormitory, adding: 

"I told those who asked if any story was attached to 
the house, that I had lived next door ever since I was born, 
and played every day with your sisters and brothers, and 
never heard a whisper that the house was haunted." 

So said all our neighbors. We kept our own counsel. 
It was our father's wise decree. 

216 



OUR TRUE FAMILY GHOST-STORY 

I have told my ghost-story with no attempt at explana- 
tion of psychical phenomena. After all these years I fall 
back, when questioned as to hypotheses, upon my father's 
terse dicta: 

"How do I account for it? I don't account for it at 
all!" 



XXI 

TWO MONUMENTAL FRIENDSHIPS 

Even at that period, when I visited my father's Northern 
kindred, I failed to bring them to a right comprehension of 
the frank, and oftentimes intimate, relations existing be- 
tween the young people of both sexes in my Virginia home. 
I have marvelled within myself since, how these relations 
came to be established at the first. We brought to the 
New World, and retained, scores of Enghsh customs of 
domestic management, and traditions of social obligations. 
It was never the fashion in England, or in her Northern 
colonies, for boys to begin "visiting the young ladies" be- 
fore they discarded roundabouts, and to keep up the fas- 
cinating habit until they tottered into the grave at four- 
score. For the same dozen young fellows to call at least 
once a week upon as many young girls; to read, chat, jest, 
flirt, drive, ride, and walk with them, month after month, 
and year after year, perhaps choosing one of the dozen as 
a lifelong partner, and quite as often running off for a 
season to another county or State, and bringing home a 
wife, with whom the philosophic coterie speedily got ac- 
quainted amiably, widening the circle to take her in, with 
never a thought of chagrin. 

The thumbnail sketches I have jotted down in my 
"purposeful" chapter, bring in the same names, again and 
again. They were, indeed, and in truth, household words. 
None of the young men and maidens catalogued in the 
Christmas doggerel I shall speak of, presently, intermarried. 
Two — perhaps four — had secret intentions that tended tow- 

218 



TWO MONUMENTAL FRIENDSHIPS 

arc! such a result in the fulness of time. Intentions, that 
interfered in nowise with their participation in the general 
hilarity. If there were any difference in the demeanor of 
the engaged, or partially betrothed, pairs from the behavior 
of the fancy-free, it was in a somewhat too obvious show 
of impartiality. Engagements were never "announced," 
and if suspected, were ignored in general society. Thus it 
often happened that a direct proposal took a girl utterly 
by surprise. 

I was but sixteen, and on a summer vacation in Albe- 
marle County, when a collegian of nineteen, who was swing- 
ing me "under green apple boughs" — lazily, because the 
rapid rush through the air would interfere with the chat 
we were carrying on, in full sight of groups scattered 
on the porch steps and about the lawn — brought down my 
thoughts— which had strayed far afield under the influence 
of the languorous motion, the sunset and the soft mingling 
of young voices — with stunning velocity, by declaring that 
he adored me, and "couldn't keep it to himself any 
longer." 

With never the suspicion of a blush, I looked him straight 
in the eyes and begged him not to make a goose of him- 
self, adding: "I didn't think you mistook me for a girl 
who enjoys that kind of badinage. It is not a bit to my 
taste. And we have been such good friends!" 

When he suffocated himself dangerously with protesta- 
tions that actually brought tears to his eyes, I represented 
that lookers-on would think we had quarrelled if I left 
the swing and his society abruptly, as I certainly should 
do if he did not begin to talk sensibly, out of hand. I 
set the example by calling to a boy who was passing with 
a basket of apples, and calmly selecting one, taking my 
time in doing it. 

Coquetry? Not a bit of it! I liked the lad too well to 
allow him to make a breach in our friendship by love- 

219 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

making. Wlien he came to his senses (four years later!) 
he thanked me for not taking the matter seriously. 

We gave, and attended, few large parties. But there were 
no dead calms in our intercourse. Somebody was always 
getting up a frolic of some sort. Tableaux, musicales, 
"sociables," where, in Christmas week, and sometimes at 
other times, we played old-fashioned games, such as "Con- 
sequences" upon slips of paper, and "Kings of England" 
with cards, and "What is my thought like?" viva voce. 
We had picnics in warm weather. Richmond College boys 
invited us out to receptions following orations on February 
22d, and we had Valentine parties, with original verses, on 
February 14th. ' 

Nowhere, and at no time, was there romping. Still less 
would kissing-games be allowed among really "nice" 
young people. This was deemed incredible by my Boston 
cousins, and yet more strange the fact that we kept up 
among ourselves decorous conventions that appeared stiff 
and inconsistent to those not to the manor born and bred. 
For example, while I might, and did, name our most in- 
timate masculine visitors, "Tom," "Dick," or "Harry" 
in chat with my girl friends, I addressed them as "Mr. 
Smith," "Jones," or "Robinson," and always spoke of them 
in the same manner in mentioning them to strangers. 
For a man to touch a lady's arm or shoulder to attract her 
attention, was an unpardonable liberty. If a pair were 
seen to "hold hands," it was taken for granted that tHey 
were engaged or — as I heard a matron say, when she had 
surprised a couple walking in the moonlight, the fair one's 
hand on the swain's arm, and his laid lightly upon it — "they 
ought to be." 

The well-bred girl of the fifties might be a rattle; she 
might enjoy life with guileless abandon that earned her the 
reputation of "dashing"; she parried shaft of teasing and 
badinage with weapons of proof; but she was never "fast." 

220 



TWO MONUMENTAL FRIENDSHIPS 

She kept her self-respect, and challenged the reverent re- 
spect of the men who knew her best. 

To this code of social and ceremonial ethics, and to the 
ban put upon dancing and card-playing by church and 
parents, is undoubtedly due the fact that Southern women 
of that generation were almost invariably what we would 
call, "good talkers." In the remembrance, and in con- 
trasting that all-so-long-ago with the times in which we 
live, I could write a jeremiade upon "Conversation as a 
Lost Art." 

From the list of names drawn into line by some Yule- 
tide rhymes of my own, bearing the date of "1852," I 
single two that must have more than a passing notice if 
I would write the true story of my threescore-and-ten 
years. 

Mary Massie Ragland was, at that Christmas-tide, twenty- 
two years of age. I had liked and admired her from the 
first. In time she grew into a place in my heart no other 
friend had ever held, and which, left vacant by her death 
six years later, has never been taken. I think no man 
or woman has more than one complete, all-satisfying friend- 
ship in a lifetime. Her portrait hangs against the wall in 
my bedchamber now. I awake each morning to meet her 
gaze bent, as in life, on mine. In sorrow and in joy, I have 
gone secretly to my room, as to an oratory, to seek in the 
depths of the beautiful eyes the sympathy never denied 
while she was with me, and visible to my dull vision. To 
a mind stored richly with the best literature, eager to ac- 
quire and faithful to retain, she added exquisite fancies, 
poetic tastes, and love for the beautiful that was a passion. 
Her heart was warm, deep, tender, and true. It well-nigh 
breaks mine in remembering how true ! In all the ten years 
in which we lived and loved together in closest intimacy, 
not a cloud ever crossed the heaven of our friendship. 

One remark, uttered simply and with infinite gentleness 

221 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

by her, after a great loss had chastened her buoyant spirits, 
stands with me as the keynote to action and character. 

I was commenting somewhat sharply upon my disap- 
pointment in not meeting, from one whom I loved and 
trusted, the fulness of sympathy I thought I had a right 
to expect in what was a genuine trial to myself. 

"She was hard and critical!" I moaned. "You saw it, 
yourself! You cannot deny it! And she was absolutely 
rude to youT 

"Dear!" The stroking fingers upon my bowed head 
were a benediction; the sweet voice was eloquent with 
compassion. "Don't judge her harshly! She is good, and 
true to you and to the right. But she has never had sor- 
row to make her tender." 

How boundless was the tenderness, my mentor, who com- 
forted while she admonished, learned in the school of pain 
in which she studied until Death dismissed her spirit, was 
fully known to Him alone whose faithful disciple she was 
to the end. 

To the world she showed a smiling front; her merry 
laugh and ready repartee were the life of whatever com- 
pany she entered, and over and through it all, it might be 
reverently said of the true, heroic soul, that, to high and 
humble, "her compassions failed not." 

"Refined by nature and refined by grace!" said one above 
her coffin. 

I added, inly: "And by sorrow!" 

"The kind of woman to whom a fellow takes off his hat 
when he thinks of her," a young cousin, who had been 
as a brother to her, wrote to me after her death. " It took 
six thousand years to make one such. I shall never 
know another." 

While on a visit to my old and beloved preceptors, Mrs. 
Nottingham and her daughters, then resident in Lexington, 
Virginia, I met Junius Fishburn, lately graduated from 

222 



TWO MONUMENTAL FRIENDSHIPS 

Washington College — now Washington and Lee. He was 
an early and intimate friend of the "Ragland girls," and 
in a way (according to Virginia ways of reckoning kin- 
ship) a family connection of theirs, too remote to deserve 
recognition in any other region or society. But he claimed 
through this the right to omit the initial steps of ac- 
quaintanceship, and I recognized the right. We were 
quickly friends — so quickly, that it was no surprise to me 
when he enclosed a note to me in a letter to one of the 
Ragland sisters, shortly after my return home. I answered 
it, and thus was established a correspondence continued 
through a terai of years, without serious interruption, up 
to the day when, in the second year after my marriage, 
my husband entered my room with a paper in his hand, and 
a grave look on his face. 

''Here is sad, sad news for you," he said, gently. "Pro- 
fessor Fishburn is dead!" 

The beautiful young wife, to whom he had been married 
less than two years, was a sister of "Stonewall Jackson's" 
first wife, a daughter of Dr. George Junkin, then President 
of Washington College, and sister of the poet, Margaret 
Junkin Preston. After "June's" death, Mrs. Preston, my 
dear friend, wrote to me of a desire her widowed sister 
hesitated to express directly to me. Her husband had 
told her that more of his early and inner life was told in 
this series of letters to me than he could ever relate to 
any one else. Would I be willing to let her read a few 
selected by myself? I had known him before he met 
her. If the request were unreasonable, she would with- 
draw it. 

There could have been no surer proof of the sincerity, 
the purity, and absolute absence of everything pertaining 
to love-making and flirtation in our ten-year-long friend- 
ship, than was offered in the circumstance that, without a 
moment's hesitation or the exclusion of a single letter, I 

223 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

made up a parcel of the epistles, and sent it, with my fond 
love, to the widow of my lamented friend. 

His letters were but a degree less charming than his 
conversation. I considered him, then, and I have not 
changed my opinion after seeing much more of the world 
of society men and brilliant women, one of the best talkers 
I have known. 

"You have hit it off happily there," said Mary, at the 
jolly reading of the lines on New- Year's Day, to ''us girls." 

And she repeated: 

"Social and witty, kind and clever; 
His chat an easy, pleasant flow, 
A thread you'd never wish to sever." 

He Was all this, and more. Our correspondence was a 
stage, and an important, in my education. We discussed 
books, authors, military and political heroes, psychology, 
philology, theology, and, as time made us more intimate 
with the depths underlying the dancing waves of thought 
and fancy, we talked much of religious faith and tenets. 

On August 26, 1850, I wrote to Effie: 

"My long neglect of correspondents (for you are not the only 
neglected one) has caused letters in abundance to accumulate. 
Among others there lies before me one from my friend, Junius 
F., a full sheet, bearing a date anterior to your last, and 
requesting an 'immediate reply.' He is a fine fellow — one of 
my 'literary' friends. Have you chanced to see anything 
of his published work? His poems, essays, etc., would re- 
flect credit upon any one. I give you the preference to-day 
because it will not hurt him to wait." 

The same calm confidence in the liking we bore one 
another prevailed throughout our intercourse. Untimely 
storms and sudden gusts belong to the tropics of passion, 
not to the temperate zone of Platonic affection. 

224 



TWO MONUMENTAL FRIENDSHIPS 

It was about this time that my presumptuous brain con- 
ceived the thought that my friend should be in the pulpit, 
instead of in the professorial chair to which he was ap- 
pointed after winning his degree from the University of 
Virginia, whither he had gone from Washington College 
for a post-graduate course, and a more thorough equipment 
for his chosen life-work. With the Brahmin traditions 
strong upon me, and the blue blood of Presbyterianism 
seething in my veins, I forthwith made out a "call," ampli- 
fied through six pages of Bath post, and dispatched it to 
Lexington. 

The nearest approach to tenderness in any of our many 
letters, came out in his reply: 

"A brother's fondness gushed up in my heart as I read 
your earnest pleadings," was the opening sentence of a 
masterly exposition of the reasons that, as he phrased it, 
"forbid my unhallowed feet to stand within the sacred 
desk." I was wrong, and he was right. His fearless utter- 
ance of the faith which was the mainspring of life and 
action, carried force a licensed clergyman seldom gains. 

He fought the good fight in the ranks, refusing the com- 
mission that had not, as he believed, the King's seal. 

I had no living elder brother. I hardly felt the loss 
while Junius lived. In 1855 he took a year's leave of 
absence, and spent it in a German university. My father 
and myself were just setting out for Boston and the White 
Mountains, and accompanied him as far as New York. 
Junius and I were promenading the deck of the Potomac 
steamer when I showed him an ambrotype given me by 
"a friend whom I am sorry you have never met." 

He looked at it intently for a moment, and, in closing the 
case, searched my face with eyes at once smihng and 
piercing. 

"Are you trying to tell me something?" he asked, in 
the gentlest of tones. 

225 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I answered honestly: "No; there is nothing to tell. 
We are warm friends — no more." 

We were interrupted, and had no more opportunity for 
confidential chat until that evening, when we strolled from 
the hotel along the moonlighted streets to the Capitol. 
He alluded playfully, in a German letter, to the never-to- 
be-forgotten excursion — our last moonht ramble, although 
we did not dream of it then — as *'my walk with Corinne to 
the Capitol." 

(Men took time and pains to say graceful things, then-a- 
days !) 

He told me that night — what he had already written in 
brief in a late letter — of his betrothal, of his happiness, and 
his ambition to make the best of himself for the dear sake of 
the woman who was waiting for him in the college town 
engirdled by the blue Virginian mountains. 

The next day but one he sailed. My father and myself 
bade him "God-speed!" I was glad it so happened. 

If I had fewer causes for devout thanksgiving to the 
Giver of every good and perfect joy than have crowned 
my life, I should still account myself rich in the memory 
of these two perfect friendships. In my ignorance of the 
world that lay without, and far beyond my small circle of 
thought, and what I believed were activities, I did not 
rightly appreciate the rarity of the gifts. I did know that 
they were passing sweet, and longed to prove myself worthy 
of holding them. 

This chapter of my humble record is a sprig of rosemary 
laid upon Friendship's Shrine. 



XXII 

THE "old AFRICAN CHURCH " 

No description of the Richmond of the forties and fifties 
would be complete without a sketch of what was, if I mis- 
take not, the first Baptist Church erected in the city. The 
white congregation that occupied it for some years had 
built a large, handsome church farther up the hill, and the 
squat, but spacious, house on the lower slope of Broad 
Street, was made over to the colored population. 

I say "population" advisedly. For perhaps half a cen- 
tury, the Richmond negroes had no other place of public 
worship, and the communicants in that denomination were 
numbered by the thousand. They are an emotionally re- 
ligious race, and I doubt if there were, all told, one hundred 
colored members of any other sect in the length and 
breadth of the county of Henrico. 

The low-browed, dingy, brick edifice surrendered to their 
use was said to have a seating capacity of two thousand. 
It was therefore in demand when mass political meetings 
were convened. When John B. Gough lectured in our city, 
no other building could accommodate the crowds that 
flocked to see and hear him. 

Big as it was, the house was filled every Sunday. There 
was a regular church organization in which deacons and 
ushers were colored. Of course the Pastor was a white. 
And oddly enough, or so it seemed to outsiders, the shep- 
herd of the black flock was the President of Richmond 
College and Divinity School, situated upon the outskirts 
of the city. 

16 227 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

His pastoral duties outside of his pulpit ministrations 
were not onerous. The Daughters of Zion, a flourishing 
society, looked after the sick and afflicted. There were 
no colored paupers under the slave system, except, once in 
a great while, "a no 'count free nigger." This last word 
was never applied to a fellow-servant, but freely and dis- 
dainfully fitted to the unfortunate freedman. 

I was never able to disabuse my mind of appreciation of 
the comic element in viewing the Rev. Robert Ryland, 
D.D. (and I am not sure but "LL.D." as weD), in his position 
as Pastor of the First African Church. He was a staid per- 
sonage of middle age, who may have been learned. If he 
were, the incongruity was the more absurd. He was never 
brilliant. Nor had he the power of adapting himself to 
his audience that might have saved the situation in some 
measure. I heard him preach once to his dusky cure of 
souls. He began by saying, apropos to his text from 
Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians: 

"Shortly after the Apostle's departure from that place, 
there arose dissensions in the church at Go-rinth." 

A preamble that was greeted by appreciative groans 
from the women in the audience. As was the assertion, 
later on, in the same discourse, that — 

''Christ may be called the Concrete Idea of our most 
holy Faith." Still more pronounced was the murmured 
applause that succeeded the remark — "This may be true in 
the Abstract. It is not true in the Concrete." 

"Concrete" was a new word in philosophers' mouths just 
then, and he worked it hard. 

The anecdote of the parishioner who found "that blessed 
word 'Mesopotamia'" the most comforting part of her 
minister's sermon, is entirely credible if she were of African 
descent. Polysyllables were a ceaseless feast to their im- 
aginations. Sesquipedalian periods were spiritual nectar 
and ambrosia. The barbaric and the florid were bound 

228 



THE "OLD AFRICAN CHURCH" 

up in their nature, and the rod of an alien civiUzation could 
not drive it far from them. 

In church relations, they recognized and revelled rankly 
in the levelling principle of Christianity which, within the 
sacred circle of the bonds of a common faith, made no in- 
vidious distinctions between bond and free. The staid 
D.D. was to them "Brer Ryland" on week-days, as on Sun- 
days. I am sure it never occurred to the humblest of 
them that whatever of dignity pertained to the rela- 
tion was his, by virtue of his holy calling, and they were 
honored in that their spiritual guide belonged to a su- 
perior race and was at the head of an institution of 
learning. 

How freely they discussed him and his teachings, will be 
illustrated by a dialogue overheard by me in my early 
school-days. 

I was walking behind two colored women one Sunday 
on my way home from church. They were evidently 
ladies' maids, from their mincing speech and affected gait, 
and were invested with what was, as palpably, their mis- 
tresses' discarded finery. 

"Brer Rylan' was quite too severe 'pon dancin'," was 
the first sentence that caught my ear. "He is kinder hard 
'pon innercint aversions, oncet in a while. You know we 
read in the Bible that the angels in heaven dance 'round 
the throne." 

"Yes," assented the elder of the two, "an' play 'pon 
jewsharps! But I've been heard that they don' cross they 
feet, and that makes a mighty difference in the sin o' 
dancin'. Of course, we all of us knows that it's a sin for 
a Christyun to dance; but, as you say. Brer Rylan' is down- 
right oncharitable sometimes in talkin' 'bout young folks' 
ways and frolickin'. He will let them promenade to the 
music of the band when the students has parties at the 
college, but never a dancin' step!" 

229 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

"Not even/' with a shrill giggle, "if they don't cross 
they feet?" 

As time whitened the good man's hair and brought heav- 
ier duties to his head and hands, he fell into the habit of 
delegating the afternoon service at the "Old African" to 
his neophytes in the Divinity School. He may have judged 
rightly that it was excellent practice for the 'prentice hand 
of embryo pulpit orators. One of the brightest of these, 
who afterward made good the promise of distinguished 
usefulness in the Southern Church, was the officiating 
evangelist on a certain Sunday afternoon, when a lively 
party of girls and collegians planned to attend the "Old 
African, " in a body, and witness his maiden performance. 

He knew we were coming, and why, but he uttered not 
a word of protest. As he said afterward, "The sooner he 
got used to mixed audiences, the better." 

What were known as the "Amen benches," at the left 
of the pulpit, were reserved for white auditors. They were 
always full. On this afternoon they were packed tightly. 
The main body of the church was also filled, and we soon 
became aware that an unusual flutter of solemn excitement 
pervaded the well-dressed throng. The front block of 
seats on each side of the middle aisle was occupied by 
women, dressed in black, many of them closely veiled, and 
pocket-handkerchiefs were ostentatiously displayed, gen- 
erally clasped between black-gloved hands folded upon the 
pit of the stomach. 

"Reminds one of a rising thundercloud!" whispered a 
graceless youth behind me. 

Presently a deacon, likewise lugubrious in aspect, tip- 
toed into the pulpit, where sat the young theologue, and, 
holding his silk hat exactly upon the small of his back in 
the left hand, bent low in offering the right to the preacher. 

The subdued rustle and shuffling, incident to the settling 
into place of a large congregation, prevented us from hear- 

230 



THE "OLD AFRICAN CHURCH" 

ing the low colloquy that succeeded the handshake. We 
had it in full from one of the actors, that evening. 

The functionary began by expressing the gratification of 
the congregation that "Brer Rylan' had sent such a talent- 
able young gentleman to 'ficiate 'pon dis occasion. 

"We been heerd a-many times of what a promisin' young 
gentleman Brer W. is, an' we is certainly mightily flattered 
at seein' him in our midst 'pon dis occasion. I jes' steps 
up here, suh, to say dis, an' to arsk is dere anything any of 
us ken do to resist Brer W. 'pon dis occasion." 

"Thank you, nothing!" responded the other, courteously. 
" You are very kind. The choir will take care of the music, 
as usual, I suppose?" 

"Suttinly, suh, suttinly! De choir am always depend- 
able 'pon every occasion. An' dey has prepared special 
music for dis solemn occasion." 

Reiteration of the word had not aroused the listener's 
curiosity. The last adjective, and the tone in which it was 
brought out, awoke him wide. 

"Solemn!" he re-echoed. "Is there anything special in 
the services of to-day?" 

The hand grasping the silk hat executed a half-circle in 
the air that seemed to frame the black-robed block of 
sitters for the startled youth. 

"Yaas, suh! Surely Brer Rylan' must 'a' told Brer W. 
de nature of our comin' togedder to-day! It's a funeral, 
suh. De dear departed deceasted nigh 'pon two mont' 
ago, but we haven't foun' it agreeable, as you mought say, 
to all parties concerned, fur to bring all de family an' frien's 
together tell terday. But dey are here now, suh, as you 
may see fur yourself. An' we are moughty pleased dat 
Brer Rylan' has sont sech a 'sponsible preacher to us as 
Brer W." 

"Mercy, man!" gasped the affrighted novice, clutching 
frantically at the notes he had been conning when the 

231 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

deacon accosted him. "I knew nothing of the funeral 
when I came. I can't preach a funeral sermon out of hand ! 
There isn't anything about death in my notes." 

His distress wrought visibly upon the deacon's sym- 
pathies. The hat described a reassuring parabola. 

"There, there! It ain't necessary for Brer W. to dis- 
combobberate himself 'pon dat account. A young gentle- 
man of Brer W.'s talents needn't get skeered at a little 
thing like an ev'ry-day funeral. All dat Brer W. has to 
do is to say a few words 'bout de dear deceasted; 'bout de 
loss to de church, an' de family, an' frien's, an' de suttinty 
o' death, an' de las' change. An' den a few rousements, 
you know, throwed in at de end. Law! I ken hear Brer 
W. doin' it up fine, when I think on it! 

"Dar! de choir is a-startin' de funeral anthim. Thank 
you, suh, fur comin' to us, and don't give yo'self no on- 
eaSiness! SUng in dem remarks 'spectin' de dear de- 
ceasted, and you'll be all right." 

I forget the text of the sermon that followed the anthem 
and the prayer. I but know that neither it, nor the intro- 
duction, had any relevancy to the "occasion." Our friend 
became a brilliant speaker in later life. Now, he was no 
more sophomoric than are nine-tenths of seminary students. 
But as he went on, we — in the slang of this era — began to 
sit up and take notice; for with dexterity remarkable in 
a tyro, he switched off from the main line into a by-road 
that led, like the paths of glory, to the grave. He had fine 
feeling and a lively imagination, and the scene and the 
music had laid hold upon both. As he confessed, subse- 
quently, he surprised himself by his intimate acquaintance 
with the departed brother. He dwelt upon his fidelity to 
duty, his devotion to the Church of his love, and what he 
had done for her best interests. Singling out, as by divina- 
tion, the widow, whose long crepe veil billowed stormily 
with audible sobs, he referred tenderly to her loneliness, 

232 



THE "OLD AFRICAN CHURCH" 

and committed her and the fatherless children to the Great 
Father and Comforter of all. By this time the congrega- 
tion was a seething mass of emotion. Fluttering handker- 
chiefs, sighs that swept the church like fitful breezes, and 
suppressed wails from the central block of reserved seats, 
drowned the feeling peroration, but we guessed the pur- 
port from the speaker's face and gestures. 

As he sat down, the audience arose, as one woman, and 
broke into a funeral chant never written in any music- 
book, and in which the choir, who sang by note, took no 
part : 

"We'll pass over Jordan, my brothers, my sisters! 
De water's chilly an' cold, but Hallelujah to de Lamb! 
Honor de Lamb, my chillun, honor de Lamb!" 

This was shouted over and over, with upraised arms at one 
portion, and, as the refrain was repeated, all joined hands 
with those nearest to them and shook from head to foot 
in a sort of Dervish dance, without, however, raising the 
feet from the floor. It was such an ecstatic shiver as I 
saw thirty-odd years thereafter, when a Nubian dancer 
gave an exhibition in a private house in the suburbs of 
Jerusalem. 

I shall have more to say of that chant presently. Return 
we to the orator of the occasion, whose extemporaneous 
"effort" had stirred up the pious tumult. 

As soon as his share of the service was over, he 
slipped out of the box - pulpit and sidled through the 
throng to the corner where w^e were grouped, watching for 
a chance to make our exit without attracting the attention 
of the worshippers. He had just reached us when the 
quick-eyed, fleet-footed deacon was at his side. We over- 
heard what passed between them. 

"Brer W., suh, I come to thank you in the name o' de 
bereaved fam'ly of de dear deceasted, suh, for yo' powerful 
sermon dis arternoon. Nothin' could 'a' been better an' 

233 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

mo' suitable!'. Dey all agree on dat ar' p'int, suh. Every 
one on 'em is pwffickly satisfied! You couldn't 'a' done no 
better, suh, ef you 'a' had a year to get ready in." 

Poor W., red to the roots of his fair hair, murmured his 
thanks, and the sable official was backing away when he 
recollected something unsaid: 

"Dar was jes' one little matter I mought 'a' mentioned 
at de fust, suh (not dat it made no difference whatsom- 
ever; de fam'ly, maybe, wouldn't keer to have me speak 
o' sech a trifle), hut de dear deceasted was a sister!" 

Then it was that W. turned an agonized face upon our 
convulsed group: 

"For Heaven's sake, is there a back door or window by 
which a fellow can get out of this place?" 

The choir of the "Old African" was one of the shows of 
the city. Few members of it could read the words of the 
hymns and anthems. Every one of them could read the 
notes, and follow them aright. The parts were well- 
balanced and well-sustained. Those who have heard the 
Fisk University Jubilee singers do not need the assurance 
that the quahty of the negro voice is rarely sweet and rich, 
and that, as a race, they have a passion for music. Visitors 
from Northern cities who spent the Sabbath in Richmond 
seldom failed to hear the famed choir of the Old African. 
On this afternoon, the then popular and always beautiful 
Jerusalem, My Happy Home, was rendered with exquisite 
skill and feeling. George F. Root, who heard the choir 
more than once while he was our guest, could not say 
enough of the beauty of this anthem-hymn as given by the 
colored band. He declared that one soloist had "the finest 
natural tenor he ever heard." 

But these were not the representative singers of the race. 
Still less should airs, composed by white musicians and 
sung all over the country as "negro melodies," pass as 
characteristic. They are the white man's conception of 

234 



THE "OLD AFRICAN CHURCH" 

what the expatriated tribes should think and feel and 
sing. 

More than thirty years after the maiden sermon of which 
I have written, our little party of American travellers drew 
back against the wall of the reputed "house of Simon the 
Tanner" in Jaffa (the ancient Joppa), to let a funeral pro- 
cession pass. The dead man, borne without a coffin, 
upon the shoulders of four gigantic Nubians, was of 
their race. Two-thirds of the crowd, that trudged, 
barefooted, through the muddy streets behind the bier, 
were of the same nationality. And as they plod- 
ded through the mire, they chanted the identical "wild, 
wailing measure" familiar to me from my infancy, which 
was sung that Sunday afternoon to the words "We'll pass 
over Jordan" — even to the oft-iterated refrain, "Honor, 
my chillun, honor de Lamb!" 

The gutterals of the outlandish tongue were all that was 
unlike. The air was precisely the same, and the time and 
intonations. 

We have taken great pains to trace the negro folk-lore 
back to its root. The musical antiquarian is yet to arise 
who will track to their home the unwritten tunes and 
chants the liberated negro is trying to forget, and to which 
his grandparents clung lovingly, all unaware that they 
were an inheritance more than a dozen generations old. 

Trained choirs might learn "book music," and scorn 
the airs crooned over their cradles, and shouted and wailed 
in prayer and camp meetings, by mothers and fathers. 
The common people held obstinately to their very own 
music, and were not to be shaken loose by the "notions" 
of "young folks who hadn't got the egg-shells off en they 
hades." 

I asked once, during a concert given by students from 
Hampton Institute, if the leader would call upon them 
for certain of the old songs — naming two or three. I was 

235 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

told that they objected to learning them, because they 
were associated with the days of their bondage. I did 
not take the trouble to convince the spruce maestro that 
what I wished to hear were memorials of the days of wild- 
est liberty, when their forbears hunted "big game" in 
their tangled native forests, and paddled their boats upon 
rivers the white man had never explored. 



XXIII 



HOW ALONE CAME TO BE 



'■'June 5th, 1854. 
"... You anticipate from this formidable array of duties, 
"hindrances, etc., that it will be some time, yet, before I can 
avail myself of your bewitching invitation. I doubt if I 
shall be ready to accept Powhie's gallant offer of his escort, 
although it is tempting^ But — 

"'I'm coming! yes, I'm coming!* 

in July, wind, weather, and all else permitting. 

"You will probably see a more august personage next Sun- 
day. I cannot resist the temptation to let you into the 
secret of a little manoeuvring of my own. I had an intimation 
a few weeks ago that Miss L. and poor lonely Mr. S., her near 
neighbor, were nodding at each other across the road. There 
was an allusion to horseback rides, and a less fertile imagina- 
tion could have concocted a very tolerable story out of the 
facts ( ?) in hand. 

"But didn't I make it tell? The plausible tale crashed into 
the peaceful brain of our worthy uncle-in-law like a bomb- 
shell into a quiet chamber at midnight. How he squirmed, 
and fidgeted, and tried to smile! 'Twas all a ghastly grin! I 
winked at Herbert, who chanced to come in while the narra- 
tive was in progress. The rogue had heard but the merest 
outline, and paid no attention to that; but he made a 'sight 
draught' upon his inventive talents, and — adding to the rides, 
'moonlight walks, afternoon strolls to the tobacco patch, and 
along the road toward the big gate to see whether the joint- 
worm was in the wheat,' and insinuations that these excursions 

237 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

were more to the lady's taste than 'sanctuary privileges' — 
almost drove the venerable wooer crazy. 

"'Yes!' said he, bitterly, pushing back his chair from the 
table. 'He has a house and plantation. A land-rope is a 
strong rope! Women look at these things.' 

"He actually followed Herbert to the front door to suppli- 
cate — Herbert declares, 'with tears in both eyes' — that he 
would at least tell him if his information was ' authentic, or if it 
might not be that he was trying to scare him?' Herbert ex- 
cused himself upon the plea of pressing business, but invited 
him to ' drop into the office some time if he would have further 
particulars.' 

"Our plot works to a charm. The reverend swain sets out 
'this very week' for Powhatan, and 'means to have the matter 
settled.' So, look out for him! 

"All this rigmarole is strictly true. No boy of seventeen 
was ever more angrily jealous or desperate. You may, if you 
like, let the Montrosians into the fun, but, until the matter 
is settled, don't let the key pass into other hands. 

"Isn't it glorious? Two bald heads ducking and ogling to 
one fortunate damsel — their bleared eyes looking 'pistols for 
two, coffee for one!' at each other? What an entrancing in- 
terruption to the monotony of a life that, until now, has flowed 
as gently as a canal stream over a grade of a foot to a mile?" 

I remark, en passant, what will probably interest not a 
living creature of this generation — to wit, that neither of 
the competitors won the amiable woman they made 
ridiculous by their wintry wooing. She returned a kindly 
negative to both bachelor and widower, and died, as she 
had lived, the beloved maiden "Auntie" of numerous 
nieces and nephews. 

Before transcribing other passages from the same letter 
— one of unusual length even for that epistolary age — 
I must retrace my steps to pick up the first thread of what 
was in time to thicken into a "cord of stronger twine." 

When I was sixteen I began to write a book. It was a 

238 



HOW "ALONE" CAME TO BE 

school-girl's story — a picture crudely done, but as truth- 
ful as I could make it — of what was going on in the small 
world I thought large, and every personage who figured 
in it was a portrait. In that book I lived and moved, and 
had my inmost being for that year. I spoke to nobody 
of what I was doing. The shrinking from confiding to my 
nearest and dearest what I was writing, was reluctance un- 
feigned and unconquerable in the case of this, my best- 
beloved brain-child. None of my own household ques- 
tioned me as to what went on in the hours spent in my 
"study," as the corner, or closet, or room where I planted 
myself and desk, was named. We had a way of respecting 
one another's eccentricities that had no insignificant share 
in maintaining the harmony which earned for ours the 
reputation of a singularly happy family. 

I was allowed to plan my day's work, so long as it did 
not impinge upon the rights or convenience of the rest. 
Directly after breakfast, I called my two willing little pupil- 
sisters to their lessons. The rock and shoals of threatened 
financial disaster that menaced our home for a while, were 
safely overpast by now. We were once more in smooth 
water, and sacrifices might be remitted. I continued to 
teach my little maids for sheer love of them, and of seeing 
their minds grow. Both were bright and docile. Alice 
had an intellect of uncommon strength and of a remarkably 
original cast. It was a delight to instruct her for some 
years. After that, we studied together. 

Our "school-time" lasted from nine until one. I never 
emerged from the study until three — the universal dinner- 
hour in Richmond. If visitors called, as often happened, 
my mother and sister excused me. In the afternoon we 
went out together, making calls, or walking, or driving. 
In the evening there was usually company, or we practised 
with piano and flute, and, as Herbert grew old enough to 
join our "band," he brought in his guitar, or we met in 

239 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

"the chamber," and one read aloud in the sweet old way 
while the others wrought with needle and pencil and draw- 
ing-board. This was the routine varied by occasional con- 
certs and parties. Now and then, I got away from the 
group and wrote until midnight. 

In 1853 the Southern Era, a semi-literary weekly owned 
and run by the then powerful and popular ''Sons of Tem- 
perance," offered a prize of fifty dollars for the best tem- 
perance serial of a given length. I had written at sixteen, 
and recast it at eighteen, a story entitled "Marrying 
Through Prudential Motives," and sent it secretly to 
Godey's Magazine. It bore the signature of "Mary Vale" 
— a veiled suggestion of my real name. For four years I 
heard nothing of the waif. I had had experiences enough 
of the same kind to dishearten a vain or a timorous writer. 
It was balm to my mortified soul to reflect that nobody 
was the wiser for the ventures and the failures. 

So I set my pen in rest, and went in for the prize; less, 
I avow, for the fifty dollars than for the reward for seeing 
my ambitious bantling in print. So faint and few were my 
expectations of this consummation, that I went off to 
Boston for the summer, without intimating to any one 
the audacious cast I had made. I had been with my 
cousins six weeks when my mother sent me a copy of the 
Southern Era, containing what she said in a letter by the 
same mail, "promised to be the best serial it had pub- 
lished." I opened the letter first, and tore the wrapper 
from the paper carelessly. 

How it leaped at me from the outermost page! 

OUR PRIZE STORY! 

KATE HARPER 

By Marion Harland 

240 



HOW ''ALONE" CAME TO BE 

All set up in what we christened in the last quarter- 
century, "scare-heads." 

As I learned later from home-letters, the editor, after 
advertising vainly for the author's address, had published 
without waiting for it. I wrote home that night to my 
father, pouring out the whole revelation, and stipulating 
that the secret should be kept among ourselves. 

"Marion Harland" was, again, a hint of my name, so 
covert that it was not guessed at by readers in general. 
The editor, an acquaintance of my father, was informed 
of my right to draw the money. I continued to send tales 
and poems to him for two years, and preserved my in- 
cognito. 

In the late spring of 1853, "Mea," Herbert, and I were 
sitting in the parlor on a wild night when it rained as rain 
falls nowhere else as in the seven-hilled city. My com- 
panions had their magazines. Mea's, as I well recollect, 
was Harper's New Monthly; my brother had the Southern 
Literary Messenger. Ned Rhodes had taken Harper's for 
me from the very first issue. My father subscribed con- 
scientiously for the Messenger to encourage Southern 
literature. All right-minded Virginians acknowledged the 
duty of extending such encouragement to the extent of 
the subscription price of "native productions." 

I had dragged out the rough copy of my book from the 
bottom of my desk that day, and was now looking it over 
at a table on one side of the fireplace. Chancing upon the 
page describing Celestia Pratt's entrance upon school-Ufe, 
I laughed aloud. 

"What is it?" queried my sister, looking up in surprise. 

"See if you know her," I responded, and read out the 
scene. She joined in the laugh. 

"To the life!" she pronounced. "Go on!" 

I finished the chapter, and the two resumed their maga- 
zines. Presently Herbert tossed his aside. 

241 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

" I say!" with boyish impetuosity. "This is stupid after 
what you gave us. Haven't you 'anything more of the 
same sort?'" 

It was a slang phrase of the day. 
It was the "Open Sesame" of my Hterary life. ^ 
They kept me reading until nearly midnight, dipping in 
here for a scene, there for a character-sketch, until my 
voice gave out. 

I began rewriting Alone next day, and we welcomed 
stormy evenings for the next two months. When the MS. 
was ready for the press, I wrote the "Dedication to my 
Brother and Sister" as a pleasant surprise to my generous 
critics. They did not suspect it until they read it in print. 
Getting the work into print was not so easy as the eager 
praises of my small audience might have inchned me to 
expect. The principal book-store in Richmond at that 
time was owned by Adolphus Morris, a warm personal 
friend of my father. The two had been intimate for years, 
and the famihes of the friends maintained most cordial 
relations. Yet it was with sore and palpable quakings of 
heart that I betook myself to the office of the man who 
took on dignity as a prospective publisher, and laid bare 
my project. It was positive pain to tell him that I had 
been writing under divers signatures for the press since 
I was fourteen. The task grew harder as the judicial look, 
I have learned to know since as the publisher's perfunctory 
guise, crept over the handsome face. When I owned, with 
blushes that scorched my hair, to the authorship of the 
"Robert Remer" series, and of the prize story in the ^ra, 
he said frankly and cooUy that he "had never read either." 
He "fancied that he had heard Mrs. Morris speak of the 
Remer papers. Religious— were they not?" 

He liked me, and his pretty wife (who had far more 
brains and vivacity than he) had made a pet of me. He 
honored my father, and was under business obligations to 

242 



HOW ''ALONE" CAME TO BE 

him. I was conscious, while I labored away at my share 
in my first business interview, that he lent kindly heed to 
me for these reasons, and not that he had the smallest 
grain of faith in the merits of my work. I was a child in 
his sight, and he would humor my whim. 

"I am wiUing to submit your manuscript to my reader," 
he said, at last. 

I looked the blank ignorance I felt. He explained 
patronizingly. He had patronized me from the moment 
I said that I had written a book. I have become famihar 
with this phase of publisherhood, also, since that awful 
day. 

''John R. T. reads all my manuscripts!" fell upon my 
ear like a trickle of boiUng lead. "Send it down when it 
is ready, and I will put it into his hands. You know, I 
suppose, that everything intended for printing must be 
written on one side of the paper?" 

I answered meekly that I had heard as much, bade him 
"Good morning!" and crept homeward, humbled to the 
dust. 

"John R. T.!" (Nobody ever left out the "R." in 
speaking of him, and nobody, so far as I ever heard, knew 
for what it stood.) 

He was the bright son of a worthy citizen; had been 
graduated at the University of Virginia; studied at the 
law, and entered the editorial profession as manager-in- 
chief, etc., of the Southern Literary Messenger. He had 
social ambitions, and had succeeded in acquiring a sort 
of world-weary air, and a gentle languor of tone and bear- 
ing which might have been copied from D' Israeli's Young 
Duke, a book in high favor in aristocratic circles. I never 
saw "Johnny" — as graceless youths who went to school 
with him grieved him to the heart by calling him on the 
street— without thinking of the novel. Like most cari- 
catures, the likeness was unmistakable. 
17 243 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

And into the hands of this "reader" I was to commit 
my "brain-child!" I cried out against the act in such 
terms as these, and stronger, in relating the substance of 
the interview to my father. 

" Be sensible, little girl ! Keep a cool head !" he counselled. 
"Business is business. And I suppose John R. understands 
his. I will take the manuscript to Morris myself to- 
morrow." 

"And make him comprehend," I interjected, "that I 
do not shirk criticism. I see the faults of my book. If I 
were sure that it would be judged fairly, I wouldn*t mind 
it so much." 

The reader kept the manuscript two months. Then my 
father wrote a civil demand to Mr. Morris for the return of 
the work. I was too sick of soul to lift a finger to reclaim 
what I was persuaded was predestined to be a dead failure. 
Two days later the bulky parcel came back. Mr. Morris 
had enclosed with it the reader's opinion: 

"I regret that the young author's anxiety to regain pos- 
session of her bantling has prevented me from reading 
more than a few pages of the story. Judging from what 
I have read, however, I should not advise you to publish 
it upon speculation." 

I laid the note before my father after supper that even- 
ing. Our mother had early inculcated in our minds the 
eminent expediency of never speaking of unpleasant topics 
to a tired and hungry man. We always waited until bath, 
food, and rest had had their perfect work upon the head 
of the house. He leaned back in his ami-chair, the even- 
ing paper at his elbow, his slippered feet to the glowing 
grate, and a good cigar between his lips. His teeth tight- 
ened suddenly upon it when he heard the note. It was 
curt. To my flayed sensibilities, it was brutal. I see, 
now, that it was businesslike and impersonal. Were I a 
professional "reader," I should indite one as brief, and 

244 



HOW "ALONE" CAME TO BE 

not a whit more sympathetic. Alone was my first book, 
and a sentient fraction of my soul and heart. 

For a whole minute there was no sound in the room but 
the bubbling song of the soft coal. I sat upon a stool 
beside my confidant, and, having passed the letter up to 
him, my head sank gradually to his knee. I was unspeak- 
ably miserable, but I made no moan. He had not patience 
with weak wails when anything remained to be done. His 
cigar had gone out, for when I lifted my head at his move- 
ment toward the lamp, he had folded the scrap of paper 
into a spile, and was lighting it. He touched the dead 
cigar with the flame, and drew hard upon it until it was in 
working order before he said: 

"I believe in that book! I shall send it back to Morris, 
to-morrow, and tell him to bring it out in good style and 
send the bill to me." 

"But," I gasped, "you may lose money by it!" 

"I don't think so. At any rate, we will make the ex- 
periment." 



XXIV 

THE DAWNING OF LITERARY LIFE 

"January 28th, 1854. 

"My very dear Friend, — I wish you were here this morn- 
ing! I long to talk with you. There are many things I 
cannot commit to paper, or of which I might be ashamed as 
soon as they were written. There are no short-hand and long- 
tongued reporters at our face-to-face confabulations. 

"Of one thing I will give you a hint: Have you any recol- 
lection of a certain MS., portions of which were read in your 
hearing last spring? I should not be surprised if you were to 
hear something of it before long. Keep your eyes upon the 
papers for a few weeks, and if you see nothing that looks hke 
a harbinger of the advent, just conclude that I have changed 
my mind at the last gasp and recalled it. For it has gone out 
of my hands! After the appearance of anything that looks 
that way, I unseal your mouth. 

"Seriously, I have much pending upon this venture. The 
success of the book may be the opening of the path I cannot 
but feel that Providence has marked out for me. 

"As it is a Virginia story, Southerners should buy it, if it 
has no other merit. My misgivings are grave and many; but 
my advisers urge me on, and notices of fugitive articles that 
have appeared in Northern and Southern papers have in- 
oculated me with a little confidence in the wisdom of their 
counsel. 

"I had not meant to say this, or, indeed, to mention the 
matter at all, but as the day of publication draws near, I am, 
to use an expressive Yankeeism — 'fidgety.' 

"If anything I have said savors of undue solicitude for the 
bantling's welfare, recollect that I am the mother. One thing 

246 



THE DAWNING OF LITERARY LIFE 

more: I shall have nothing to do with advertisements. If 
they laud the work too highly, bear in mind that it is 'all in 
the way of trade/ and that booksellers will have their way. 

"Our 'Musical Molasses Stew' came off last night. We had 
a grand 'time!' Violin, flute, guitar, piano — all played by 
masculine amateurs, and a chorus of men's voices. It was 
*nae sae bad,' as the Scotch critic said of Mrs. Siddons's acting. 
The same might be said of the real frolic of pulling the treacle. 
My partner was a young Nova Scotian — 'Blackader' by name 
— an intelligent, agreeable, and versatile youth who entered 
gloriously into the spirit of the occasion. He played upon the 
piano, sang treble, tenor, and bass by turns, and pulled and 
laughed with me until he had no strength left." 

I was but feebly convalescent from a brief illness when, 
chancing to pick up the latest number of Godey's Maga- 
zine, and fluttering the leaves aimlessly, my eyes rested 
upon a paragraph in the "Editor's Table," 

"Will the author of 'Marrying Through Prudential 
Motives' send her address to the editor?" 

A queer stoiy followed. The tale, sent so long ago to 
Mr. Godey that I had almost forgotten it, had fallen behind 
a drawer of his desk, and lain there for three years and 
more. When it finally turned up, curiosity, aroused by 
its disappearance and exhumation, led the editor to read it 
more carefully than if it had reached him through ordinary 
channels. He liked it, published it, and waited to hear 
from the author. 

By some mischance that particular number of the 
"Lady's Book" had escaped my notice. The story was 
copied into an English periodical; translated from this 
into French, and appeared on the other side of the channel. 
Another British monthly "took up the wondrous tale" 
by rendering the French version back into the vernacular. 
In this guise the much-handled bit of fiction was brought 
across the seas by The Albion, a New York periodical that 

247 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

published only English "stuff." Mr. Godey arraigned 
The Albion for piracy, and the truth was revealed by 
degrees. Richmond papers copied the odd "happening" 
from Northern, and Mr. Morris made capital of it in ad- 
vertising the forthcoming novel. 

I have more than once spoken of the Richmond of that 
date as "provincial." It was so backward in literary 
enterprise that the leading bookseller had not facilities at 
his command for publishing the book committed to him. 

On March 9, 1854, I wrote to my Powhatan corre- 
spondent: 

"Cousin Joe says he was charged by you to get 'my book.' 
I am sorry to say that it cannot be procured as yet. Un- 
looked for delays have impeded the work of publication. But, 
as the proofs arrive daily, now, I trust that the wheels, are 
beginning to run more smoothly. It is printed in Philadel- 
phia, although copyrighted in Richmond. Not a printer in 
this city could finish it before the 1st of May, so we were 
forced to send it to the North. . . . 

"You will read and like it, if only because I wrote it. 
Whether or not others may cavil at the religious tone, and 
ridicule the simplicity of the narrative, remains to be seen. 
Thus far I have had encouragement from all sides. My own 
fears are the drawback to sanguine expectation." 

The actual advent of Alone was a surprise, after all the 
waiting and wondering that left the heart sick with hope 
deferred. 

I was setting out for a walk one balmy May morning, 
and standing on the front porch to draw on my gloves, 
when Doctor Haxall, who had long had in our family the 
sobriquet of "the beloved physician," reined in his horses 
at the gate and called out that he was "just coming to 
ask me to drive with him." He had often done the like 
good turn to me. 

I was not robust, and he had watched my growth with 

248 



THE DAWNING OF LITERARY LIFE 

more than professional solicitude. Had he been of my 
very own kindred, he could not have been kinder or dis- 
played more active interest in all my affairs — great to me 
and small to him. 

"Headache?" he queried, with a keen look at my pale 
face when I was seated at his side. ' 

"Not exactly! I think the warm weather makes me 
languid." 

"More likely overexcited nerves. You must learn to 
take life more philosophically. But we won't talk shop!" 

We were bowling along at a fine rate. The doctor 
drove fast, blooded horses, and liked to handle the ribbons 
himself. The day was deliciously fresh, the air sweet with 
early roses and honeysuckle. I called his attention, in 
passing Conway Robinson's grounds, to the perfume of 
violets rising in almost visible waves from a ravine where 
the grass was whitened by them as with a light fall of 
snow. I asked no questions as we turned down Capitol 
Street, and thence into Main Street. Sometimes I sat in 
the carriage while he paid a professional call. This might 
be his intention now. We brought up abruptly at Morris's 
book-store, and the blessed man leaped out and held his 
hand to me. He probably had an errand there. He 
handed me into the interior in his brisk way, and marched 
straight up to Mr. Morris, who advanced to meet us. 

"Good-morning! I have come for a copy of this young 
lady's book!" 

If I had ever fainted, I should have swooned on the spot. 

For there, in heaps and heaps upon the front counter — 
in bindings of dark-blue, and purple, and crimson, and 
leaf-brown — lay in lordly state, portly volumes, on the 
backs of which, in gleaming gold that shimmered and shook 
before my incredulous vision, was stamped: 

"Alone." 

I saw, through the sudden dazzlement of the whole world 

249 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

about me, that a clerk had set a chair for me. I sat down 
gratefully. 

Mr. Morris was talking: 

"Opened this morning! I sent six copies up to you. 
I suppose you got them?" 

"No!" I tried so hard to say it firmly that it sounded 
careless. I would have added, "I did not know it was 
out," but dared not attempt a sentence. 

Mr. Morris attended us to the door to point to placards 
a porter was tacking to boards put there for that express 
purpose: 

JUST OUT!! 

ALONE! 

By Marion Harland 

The doctor nodded satisfiedly and handed me into the 
carriage. In taking my seat, I thought, in a dull, sick 
way, of Bruce at the source of the Nile. I had had day- 
dreams of this day and hour a thousand times in the last 
ten years. Of how I should walk down-town some day, and 
see a placard at this very door bearing the title of a novel 
written and bound, and lettered in gilt, and published! 
bearing my pen-name! The \dsion was a reality; the 
dream was a triumphant fulfilment. And I was sitting, 
unchanged, and non-appreciative, by the dear old doctor, 
and his full, cordial tones were saying of the portly purple 
volume lying on the seat between us: 

"Well, my dear child, I congratulate you, and I hope a 
second edition will be called for within six months !" 

He did not ply me with questions. He may not have 
suspected that the shock had numbed my ideas and stiff- 
ened my tongue. If he had, he could not have borne him- 
self more tactfully. He was a man who had seen the 

250 



THE DAWNING OF LITERARY LIFE 

world and hobnobbed with really distinguished live 
authors. It would not have been possible for him to 
enter fully into what this day was to me. When I thought 
of Bruce and the Nile, it was because I did not compre- 
hend that the very magnitude of the crisis was what de- 
prived me of the power of appreciating what had hap- 
pened. 

No! I am not inclined to ridicule the unsophisticated 
girl whose emotions were too mighty for speech that May 
noon, and to minimize what excited them. Nothing that 
wealth or fame could ever offer me in years to come could 
stir the depths of heart and mind as they were upheaved 
in that supreme hour. 

The parcel of books had been opened and the contents 
examined, by the time I got home. I stole past the open 
door of my mother's chamber, where she and Aunt Rice, 
who was visiting us, and Mea were chatting vivaciously, 
and betook myself to my room. 

WTien my sister looked me up at dinner-time I told her 
to excuse me from coming down. "The heat had made 
me giddy and headachy." 

She bade me '4ie still. She would send me a cup of 
tea." 

"I'll leave you this for company," she cooed, la3dng 
the book tenderly on my pillow. "We think it beau- 
tiful." 

With that she went out softly, shutting me in with my 
"beautiful" first-born. Mea always had her wits within 
easy call. The sixth sense was born within her. 

I saw of the travail of my soul and was satisfied; was 
repaid a thousandfold for months of toil and years of 
waiting, when my father read my book. He did not go 
down-town again that day, after coming home to dinner. 
My mother told me, ^^^th a happy break in her laugh, how 
he had hardly touched the food on his plate. Amit Rice's 

251 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

pleasant prattle saved the situation from awkwardness 
when he lapsed into a brown study and talked less than 
he ate. When dessert was brought in, he excused himself 
and disappeared from general view for the rest of the 
afternoon. The door of " the chamber " to which he with- 
drew was fast shut. Nobody disturbed him until it was 
too dark to read by daylight. My mother took in a 
lighted lamp and set it on the table by him. 

''He didn't see or hear me!" was her report. "He is a 
quarter through the book already, and he doesn't skip a 
word." 

He spent just fifteen minutes at the supper-table. It 
was two o'clock in the morning before he reached the last 
page. 

After prayers next morning he put his arm about me 
and held me fast for a moment. Then he kissed me very 
gravely. 

"I was right about that book, daughter!" 

That was all! but it was, to my speechless self, as if the 
morning stars had sung together for joy. 

I record here and now what I did not know in the spring- 
tide of my happiness. I never had — I shall never have — 
another reader like him. As long as he lived, he '' believed " 
in me and in my work with a sincerity and fervor as im- 
possible for me to describe as it can be for any outsider 
to believe. He made the perusal of each volume (and they 
numbered a score before he died) as solemn a ceremony 
as he instituted for the first. His absolute absorption in 
it was the secret jest of the family, but they respected it 
at heart. When he talked with me of the characters that 
bore part in my stories, he treated them as real flesh-and- 
blood entities. He found fault with one, and sympathized 
with another, and argued with a third, as seeing them in 
propia personcE. It was strange — phenomenal — when one 
considers the light weight of the literature under advise- 

252 



THE DAWNING OF LITERARY LIFE 

ment and the mental calibre of the man. To me it was 
at once inspiration and my exceeding great reward. 

"June 5th, 1854. 

"Dear Effie, — From a formidable pile of letters of good 
wishes and congratulation, I select (not happen upon!) your 
sweet, affectionate epistle, every word of which, if it did not 
come from your heart, went straight to mine. 

"I shall never be a literary iceberg! That is clear. I have 
had a surfeit of compliments in public and in private, but a 
word of appreciation from a true, loving friend gwes me more 
delicious pleasure than all else. 

"I make no excuse for speaking freely to you of what you 
say is 'near akin' to you. I thank you heartily for owning 
the relationship. Two editions have been 'run off' already, 
and another is now in press — unprecedented success in this 
part of the world — or so they tell me. Northern papers notice 
the book more at length and more handsomely than does the 
Richmond press. 

''Of the sales in your county, I know nothing. Oh yes! 
C. W. told Mr. Rhodes that 'Miss Virginia Hawes's novel is 
having a tremendous run in Powhatan. Tre-men-dous, sir! 
Why, I had an order to buy a copy and send it up, myself, sir!' 

"Isn't that characteristic?" 



XXV 

BROUGHT FACE TO FACE WITH MY FATE 

The promised visit to Powhatan was paid in July. 

"How happily the days of Thalaba went by!" 

I said over the strangely musical line to myself scores of 
times in the two months of my stay in the dear old county. 
"Homestead," the home of the D.'s, was never more beau- 
tiful, and uhe days were full of innocent fun, and junketings 
without number. College and University boys were at 
home, and city people were flocking to the country. There 
were wallx, drives, "dining-days," early and late horse- 
back parties, setting out from one hospitable house before 
sunrise, and breakfasting at another ten or twelve miles 
away; or, better yet, leaving home at sunset, and pacing, 
cantering, and galloping (women never rode trotting 
horses) along highroad and plantation lane to a house, 
buried in ancestral woods, in the very heart of the county, 
for supper, returning by the light of the harvest moon, 
as fresh as when we set forth. With no premonition that 
this was to be the most eventful summer and autumn of 
my hitherto tranquil life, I gave myself up, wholly and 
happily, to the influences that sweetened and glorified it. 
Late in August I resolved rather suddenly to go home. 
My sister was in Boston; my father would not leave his 
business for so much as a week ; my mother and the younger 
children ought to be in the country. Since she would not 
resign my father to what she spoke of as "Fate and ser- 

254 



FACE TO FACE WITH MY FATE 

vants/' I would throw my now rejuvenated body into the 
breach, abide by the stuff and her husband and sons, 
while she took a sadly needed rest with old friends in 
Nottoway County. 

Recollecting how persistently I clung to the decision in 
the face of a tempest of protest, my own heart in secret 
league with the protestants, I acknowledge with humble 
gratitude the guidance of the "moving finger that writes" 
out the destinies we think to control for ourselves. 

The glow of the halcyon summer had not passed from 
my spirit when I wrote to my late hostess two days after 
my return: 

"Richmond, August 2Qth, 1854. 

"My Own Friend, — I said 'I will write next week,' but it 
suits my feelings and convenience to write this morning. 

"In the first place, my heart is so full of happiness that it 
overflows upon and toward everybody that I love, and don't 
you dear Homesteadians — yourself and Powhie, especially — 
come in for a share? 

"Mrs. Noble was very pleasant, but the journey was a bit 
tedious. It always is! Richmond looked enchanting when 
at last the spires and chimneys appeared upon the horizon, 
and my sweet home was never so pretty before. 

"Mother had planned an agreeable surprise, and not told 
me that the painters had been at work elsewhere than in my 
room. So the freshly painted shutters and the white window- 
facings and cornices, contrasted with the gray walls, were 
doubly beautiful, because not expected. Then Percy came 
tumbling down the steps, clapping his hands and shouting in 
glee, and Alice's bright smile shone upon me at the gate, and 
mother left company in the parlor to give me four kisses — 
and all I could say was, 'I have had such a pleasant visit, 
and now I am so glad to see you all!' 

"Father could not be coaxed to bed that night until one 
o'clock, although mother reminded him that he had a head- 
ache. 

"'Never mind! Daughters don't come home every night!' 

255 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

"'But this one will be tired out!' 

'"Well, she may sleep late to-morrow morning.' 

"He doesn't know how lazy I have grown of late. 

"I am surprised to find vegetation so luxuriant here. My 
inquiries concerning the 'late drought' are answered by a 
stare of amazement. Rain has been abundant in this region. 
In our garden the vegetables and grape-vines grow rank and 
tall. And as for flowers! There were seven bouquets in the 
parlor, smiling and breathing a welcome. Last night I re- 
ceived one per rail from Horace Lacy (bless his soul!), and 
Herbert to-night brought up another and a magnificent, 
when he came to his late supper. 

"Mother had delicious peaches for supper the night I got 
back, but advised me to 'eat them sparingly, at first.' Yester- 
day I forgot her caution, and I think I am the better for the 
lapse. Peaches, watermelons, apples, sweet potatoes, etc, 
were liberally patronized by us all. The cholera 'scare' 
seems to be over. Doctor Haxall advised the members of 
our family to make no change in their diet while they con- 
tinued well, and they have prospered wonderfully under his 
regimen, . . . 

"I wish I had time to tell you of some queer letters I found 
waiting for me. Father would not forward them, 'for fear 
of annoying me,' They are meant to be complimentary, one 
requesting 'some particulars of your birthplace, education,' 
etc, 'Wish he may get them!' 

"Now, dear, forgive this egotistical scrawl — written as fast 
as fingers can scratch — but just seat yourself and tell me 
exactly what you have been doing, saying, and thinking since 
I left; how our pet, Powhie (the dear old scamp!), is thriving; 
and the state of your mother's health, also the news from 
The Jungle. 

"Our Heavenly Father bless and love you, my darUng!" 

We packed my mother and her younger children off to 
the country the first of September, and rejoiced unselfishly 
that they had escaped the fervid heats of the following 
week. Our house was deliciously cool by comparison with 

256 



FACE TO FACE WITH MY FATE 

the sultriness of the outer world. The thick walls and 
lofty ceilings kept the temperature at an equable and com- 
fortable point. We breakfasted early, and by nine o'clock 
the day was my own — or six consecutive hours of it. 

In unconscious imitation of Charlotte Bronte, who be- 
gan Jane Eyre while The Professor was "plodding his 
weary round from publisher to publisher," I had begun 
another book by the time Alone was turned over to the 
tender mercies of Mr. Morris's "reader." I finished the 
first draught on the forenoon of September 11th, having 
wrought at it with the fierce joy in work that ever comes 
to me after a season of absolute or comparative idleness. 

I was very weary when the last word was written: 

"Alma was asleep!" 

I read it aloud to myself in the safe solitude of my shaded 
library. I had not heard then that Thackeray slapped 
his thigh exultantly after describing the touch of pride 
Becky felt in her husband's athletic pummelling of her 
lover. I could have understood it fully at that instant. 

"Thackeray, my boy, that is a stroke of genius!" cried 
the great author, aloud, in honest pride. 

The small woman writer sat wearily back in her chair, 
and said — not murmured: "I flatter myself tliat is a neat 
touch!" 

Then I found that my head ached. Moreover, it had 
a strange, empty feeling. I compared it to a squeezed 
sponge. I likewise reminded myself that I had not been 
out of the house for two days; that my father had shaken 
his head when I told him it was "too hot for walking," 
warning me that I "must not throw away the good the 
country had done for me." He would ask me, at supper- 
time, if I had taken the admonition to heart. 

I went off to my room, bathed, and dressed for a round 
of calls. This I proceeded to make, keeping on the shady 
side of the street. I called at three houses, and found every- 

257 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

body out. The sun was setting when I stood in front of 
my mirror on my return, and laid aside bonnet and mantle 
(we called it a "visite"). The red light from the west 
shot across me while I was brushing up the hair the hot 
dampness had laid flat. It struck me suddenly that I was 
looking rather well. I wore what we knew as a "spencer" 
of thin, dotted white muslin. It would be a "shirt-waist" 
to-day. It was belted at what was then a slim waist 
above a skirt of "changeable" silk. Herbert had said it 
"reminded him of a pale sunrise," but there were faint 
green reflections among shimmering pinks. There must 
be somebody in the immediate neighborhood upon whom 
I might call while I was dressed to go out. A dart of self- 
reproach followed swiftly upon the thought. 

My old and favorite tutor, Mr. Howison, had broken 
down in health two years after accepting a call to his first 
parish. An obstinate affection of the throat made preach- 
ing impracticable. At the end of a year of compulsory 
inaction, he resumed the practice of law in Richmond, and 
within another twelve months married the woman he had 
sought and won before his illness. They lived in a pleasant 
house upon the next street, so near that we often "ran 
around" to see each other. "Mary's" younger sister 
had died during my absence from home, and as I 
reminded myself, now, I ought to have called before 
this. 

Half a square from her door, I recalled that the young 
clergyman who was supplying Doctor Hoge's pulpit while 
he was abroad, and whom I had heard preach last Sun- 
day, was staying at the Howison's. It was not right, in 
the eyes of the church, that he should go to a hotel, and 
since he would go nowhere except as a boarder, the Howi- 
sons had opened door and hearts to make him at home 
in his temporary charge. He had given us an interesting 
sermon on Sunday, and made a pleasing impression gen- 

258 



FACE TO FACE WITH MY FATE 

erally. I had not thought of him since, until ahnost at the 
gate of my friends' house. Then I said, inly: 

"Should the youthful divine be hanging about the porch 
or yard, I'll walk on unconcernedly and postpone the call." 

Being famiUar with the ways of young sprigs of divinity, 
and having over twenty blood-relatives who had the right 
to prefix their baptismal names by "The Reverend," I 
had no especial fondness for the brand. Furthermore,/ 
three callow clerics and one full-fledged had already in- 
vited me to share parsonage and poverty with them. For 
all I had one and the same reply. It might be my pre- 
destined lot, as certain anxious friends began to hint, to 
live out my earthly days in single blessedness; and, if the 
ancient anti-race-suicide apostles were to be credited, 
then to lead apes in Hades for an indefinite period. I 
would risk the terrors of both states sooner than take upon 
me the duties and liabilities of a minister's wife. Upon 
that I was determined. 

The youthful divine was nowhere in sight. Nor did he 
show up during the half-hour I passed with the Howisons. 
They proposed walking home with me when I arose to go. 
Just outside the gate we espied a tall figure striding up 
the street, swinging his cane in very unclerical style. Mr. 
Howison stopped, 

"Ah, Mr. Terhune! I was hoping you might join us." 

Then he introduced him to me. Of course, he asked per- 
mission to accompany us, and we four strolled abreast 
through the twilight of the embowered street. I had 
known the sister of Mr. Terhune, who, as the widow of 
Doctor Hoge's most intimate friend, was a frequent visitor 
to Richmond. I asked civilly after her, and was answered 
as civilly. We remarked upon the heat of the day and the 
fine sunset; then we were at our gate, where my father and 
brother were looking out for me. 

My escorts declined the invitation to enter garden and 
18 259 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

house; Mr, Howison passed over to me a big bunch of roses 
he had gathered from his garden and brought with him, 
and, having exchanged ''Good-evenings," we three lingered 
at the gate to admire the flowers. There was no finer col- 
lection of roses in any private garden in town than those 
which were the lawyer's pets and pride. My face was 
buried in the cool deliciousness of my bouquet when, 
through the perfect stillness of the evening, we heard our 
new acquaintance say: 

"Your friend. Miss Hawes, walks well." 

He had, as we had noticed on Sunday, a voice of mar- 
vellous compass, with peculiar "carrying" quahties. He 
had not spoken more loudly than his companions, and, 
having reached the corner of the street, he fancied himself 
beyond earshot. Every word floated back to us. 

We laughed — all three of us. Then I said, deliberately: 

"If that man ever asks me to marry him, I shall have 
to do it! I vowed solemnly, long ago, to marry the first 
man who thinks me handsome^ if he should give me the 
chance. Let us hope this one won't!" 

"Amen!" responded my hearers, my father adding, "His 
cloth rules him out." 

It may have been a week later in the season that I was 
strolling down Broad Street in company with "Tom" 
Baxter, Mr. Rhodes's chummiest crony. He had over- 
taken me a few squares farther up-town, and was begging 
me, in the naive way most girls found bewitching, to take 
a turning that would lead us by an office where he was to 
leave a paper he had promised to deliver at that hour. 

"Then," he pursued, with the same refreshing simplicity 
of tone and look, "there will be nothing to hinder me from 
going all the way home with you." 

I refused point-blank, and he detained me for a minute 
at the parting of the ways, entreating and arguing, until 
I cut the nonsense short by saying that / had an engage- 

260 



FACE TO FACE WITH MY FATE 

ment which I must keep without regard to his convenience, 
and walked on. Tom was an amusing fellow, and hand- 
some enough to win forgiveness for his absurdities. I was 
smiling to myself in the recollection of the little farce, 
when I met, face to face, but not eye to eye — for we were 
both looking at the pavement — the man who had said 
that I walked well. He stepped aside hurriedly; the hand 
that swung the cane went up to his hat, and we went our 
separate ways. 

That evening I was surprised to receive a call from our 
pastor pro tempore. He told me, months afterward, that 
he was homesick and lonely on that particular afternoon. 
At least two-thirds of the best people in the parish were 
out of town, and he found little to interest him in those 
he met socially. 

"You smiled in such a genial fashion when we met on 
that blessed corner that I felt better at once. The recol- 
lection of that friendly look gave me courage to call, out 
of hand." 

Whereupon, I brought sentimentality down on the run 
by asking if he had ever heard the negro proverb, "Fired 
at the blackbird and hit the crow " ? 

"That was Tom Baxter's smile — not yours!" 



XXVI 

LITERARY WELL-WISHERS — GEORGE D. PRENTICE — MRS. 
SIGOURNEY — GRACE GREENWOOD — H. W. LONGFELLOW — 
JAMES REDPATH — "tHE WANDERING JEW " 

Authors were not so plentiful then as to attract no at- 
tention in a crowd of non-literary people. Men and women 
who had climbed the heights had leisure to glance down 
at those nearer the foot of the hill, and to send back a 
cheering hail. I had twenty letters from George D. Pren- 
tice, known of all men as the friend and helper of youth- 
ful writers. All were kind and encouraging. By-and-by, 
they were fatherly and familiar. As when I lamented that 
I had never been able to make my head work without my 
heart, he responded, "Hearts without heads are too im- 
pulsive, sometimes too hot. Heads without hearts are too 
cold. Suppose you settle the matter by giving the heart 
into my keeping, in trust for the happy man who will call 
for it some day?" 

His letters during the war were tinged with sadness. In 
one he wrote: "My whole heart is one throbbing prayer 
to the God of Nations that He will have mercy upon my 
beloved country." 

In reply to a letter of sympathy after the death of a 
gallant young son, who fell on the battle-field, he said: 

"My dear boy never gave me a pang except by entering 
the army (in obedience to what he felt was the call of duty), 
and in dying. A nobler, more dutiful son never gladdened 
a father's heart." 

262 



LITERARY WELL-WISHERS 

Our correspondence was continued as long as the poet- 
editor lived. I owe him much. I wish I had made him 
comprehend how much. 

Mrs. Sigourney, then on "the retired list" of American 
authors, sent me a copy of her latest volume of poems — 
A Western Hotne — and three or four letters of motherly 
counsel, one of which advised me to take certain epochs 
of American history as foundation-stones for any novels I 
might write in future, and bidding me "God-speed!" 

Grace Greenwood opened a correspondence with the 
younger woman who had admired her afar off, and we 
kept up the friendship until she went abroad to live, re- 
suming our intercourse upon her return to New York in 
the early eighties. 

From Mr. Longfellow I had two letters. One told me 
that Mrs. Longfellow was "reading Alone in her turn." 

"I am pleased to note upon the title-page of my copy, 
'Sixth Edition.' That looks very like a guide-board pointing 
to Fame. I should think you would feel as does the traveller 
in the Tyrol who sees, at a turn in the rocky pass, a finger-post 
with the inscription — 'To Rome.' Hoping that you will not 
be molested by the bandits who sometimes infest that route, 
I am sincerely yours, Henry W. Longfellow." 

I have carried the letter, word for word, in my heart for 
more than half a century. A patent of nobility would not 
have brought me keener and more exquisite pleasure. 

Not that I deceived myself, for one mad hoar, with the 
fancy that I could ever gain the right to stand for one 
beatific moment on a level with the immortals whom I 
worshipped. In the first flush of my petty triumph, I felt 
my limitations. The appreciation of these has grown 
upon me with each succeeding year. "Fred" Cozzens, the 
" Sparrowgrass " of humorous literature, said to me once 
when I expressed something of this conviction: 

263 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

"Yet you occupy an important niche." 

I replied in all sincerity: ''I know my place. But the 
niche is small, and it is not high up. All that I can hope 
is to fill it worthily, such as it is." 

The history of one bulky packet of letters takes me back 
to the orderly progress of my story, and to the most singu- 
lar and romantic episode of that first year of confessedly 
literary life. 

Alone had been out in the world about three months, 
when I received a letter from a stranger, postmarked 
"Baltimore," and bearing the letter-head of a daily paper 
published in that city. The signature was "James Red- 
path." The writer related briefly that, chancing to go 
into Morris's book-store while on a visit to Richmond, he 
had had from the publisher a copy of my book, and read it. 
He went on to say: 

"It is full of faults, as you will discover for yourself in 
time. Personally, I may remark, that I detest both your 
politics and your theology. All the same, you will make 
your mark upon the age. In the full persuasion of this, I 
write to pledge myself to do all in my power to forward your 
literary interests. I am not on the staff of the Baltimore 
paper, although now visiting the editor-in-chief. But I have 
influence in more than one quarter, and you will hear from 
me again." 

I laid the queer epistle before my father, and we agreed 
that my outspoken critic was slightly demented. I was 
already used to odd communications from odd people, some 
from anonymous admirers, some from reviewers, pro- 
fessional and amateur, who sought to "do me good," after 
the disinterested style of the guild. 

I was therefore unprepared for the strenuous manner 
in which "Mr. James Redpath proceeded to keep his pledge. 
Not a week passed in which he did not send me a clipping 

264 



JAMES REDPATH 

from some paper, containing a direct or incidental notice 
of my book, or work, or personality. Now he was in New 
Orleans, writing fiery Southern editorials, and insinuating 
into the body of the same, adroit mention of the rising 
Southern author. Now he slipped into a Cincinnati paper 
a poem taken from Alone, with a line or two, calling atten- 
tion to the novel and the author; then a fierce attack upon 
the "detested politics and theology" flamed among book- 
notices in a Buffalo journal, tempered by regrets that "real 
talent should be grossly perverted by sectional prejudice 
and superstition." Anon, a clever review in a Boston 
paper pleased my friends in the classic city so much that 
they sent a marked copy to me, not dreaming that I had 
already had the critique, with the now familiar "J, R." 
scrawled in the margin. The climax of the melodrama 
was gained during the struggle over "bleeding Kansas" in 
1855. A hurried note from the near neighborhood of 
Leavenworth informed me that a pro-slavery force, double 
the size of the abolitionist militia gathered to resist it, was 
advancing upon the position held by the latter. My daunt- 
less knight wrote: 

"Farewell, dear and noble lady! If I am not killed in the 
fight, you will hear from me again and again. Shoukl I be 
translated to another sphere, 1 shall still (if possible) rap 
back notices of your work through the Fox sisters or other 
mediums." 

Hearing nothing more of or from him for two months, I 
was really unhappy in the apprehension that his worst 
fears had been realized. I had grown to like him, and my 
gratitude for his disinterested championship was warm and 
deep. My father expressed his conviction that the eccen- 
tric was the Wandering Jew, and predicted his safe de- 
liverance from the pro-slavery hordes, and reappearance 
in somebody's editorial columns. His prophecy was ful- 

265 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

filled in a long report in a Philadelphia sheet of a meeting 
with the "new star of the South," in the vestibule of the 
church attended by the aforesaid. Nothing that escaped 
my lips was set down, but my dress and appearance, my 
conversational powers and deportment were painted in 
glowing colors, the veracious portraiture concluding with 
the intelligence that I would shortly be married to the son 
of a former Governor of Virginia — ''a man, who, despite 
his youth, has already distinguished himself in the pohtical 
arena, and we are glad to say, in the Democratic ranks." 

I thought my father would have an apoplectic fit when 
he got to that! 

"See here, my child! I don't presume to interfere with 
Salathiel, or by what other name your friend may choose 
to call himself, and there are all manner of tricks in the 
trade editorial, but this is going a little too far. He sha'n't 
marry you off, without your consent — and to a Democrat!" 

I had the same idea, and hearing directly from Mr. Red- 
path soon afterward, I said as much, as kindly as I could. 
The remonstrance elicited a gentlemanly rejoinder. While 
the style of the "report" was "mere newspaper lingo," he 
claimed that the framework was built by an attache of the 
Philadelphia daily, whom he (Redpath) had commissioned 
to glean all he could of my appearance, etc., during a fl3ang 
trip to Richmond. The young fellow had written the 
article and sent it to press without submitting it to Sala- 
thiel. The like should not occur again. In my answer to 
the apology, I expressed my profound sense of gratitude 
to my advocate, and confessed my inability to divine the 
motive power of benefactions so numerous and unsolicited. 
His reply deepened the mystery: 

"Your book held me back from infidelity. Chapter 
Sixteenth saved my life. Now that you know thus much, 
we will, if you please, have no more talk on your part of 
gratitude." 

266 



"THE WANDERING JEW" 

Five years elapsed between the receipt of that first note 
signed "James Redpath," and the explanation of what 
followed. I may relate here, in a few sentences, what he 
wrote to me at length, and what was published in an ap- 
preciative biographical sketch written by a personal friend 
after his death. 

He was born in Scotland; emigrated in early manhood 
to America, and took up journalistic work. Although suc- 
cessful for a while, a series of misfortunes made of him a 
misanthropic wanderer. His brilliant talents and ex- 
perience found work and friends wherever he went, and he 
remained nowhere long. Disappointed in certain enter- 
prises upon which he had fixed his mind and expended his 
best energies, he found himself in Richmond, with but one 
purpose in his soul. He would be lost to all who knew 
him, and leave no trace of the failure he believed himself 
to be. He put a pistol in his pocket and set out for Holly- 
wood Cemetery. There were sequestered glens there, then, 
and lonely thickets into which a world-beaten man could 
crawl to die. On the way up-town, he stopped at the book- 
store and fell into talk with the proprietor, who, on learning 
the stranger's profession, handed him the lately-published 
novel. Arrived at the cemetery, Redpath was disap- 
pointed to see the roads and paths gay with carriages, 
pedestrians, and riding-parties. He would wait until twi- 
light sent them back to town. He lay down upon the turf 
on a knoll commanding a view of the beautiful city and 
the river, took out his book and began reading to while 
away the hours that would bring quiet and solitude. The 
sun was high, still. He had the editorial knack of rapid 
reading. The dew was beginning to fall as he finished the 
narrative of the interrupted duel in the sixteenth chapter. 

I believed then, and I am yet more sure, now, that other 
influences than the crude story told by one whose ex- 
perience of hfe was that of a child by comparison with his, 

267 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

wrought upon the lonely exile during the still hours of that 
perfect autumnal day. It suited his whim to think that 
the book turned his thoughts from his design of self- 
destruction. 

Before he slept that night he registered a vow — thus he 
phrased it in his explanatory letter — to write and publish 
one thousand notices of the book that had saved his life. 

When the vow was fulfilled — and not until then — did I 
get the key to conduct that had puzzled me, and baffled 
the conjectures of the few friends to whom I had told the 
tale. 

I met James Redpath, face to face, but once, and that 
was — if my memory serves me aright — in 1874. He was 
in Newark, New Jersey, in the capacity of adviser-in-chief, 
or backer, of a friend who brought a party of Indians from 
the West on a peaceful mission to Washington and some of 
the principal cities, in the hope of exciting philanthropic 
interest in their advancement in civilization. 

"He is as enthusiastic in faith in the future of the red- 
man as I was once in the belief that the negro would arise 
to higher levels," remarked Salathiel, with a smile that 
ended in a sigh. "Heigho! youth is prone to ideals as the 
sparks to fly upward." 

Learning that I was in the opera-house where the "show" 
was held, he had invited me into his private stage-box, 
and there, out of sight of the audience, and indifferent to 
the speech-making and singing going on, on the stage, we 
talked for an hour with the cordial ease of old friends. 
My erst knight-errant was a well-mannered gentleman, 
still in the prime of manhood, with never a sign of the 
eccentric "stray" in feature, deportment, or the agreeable 
modulations of his voice. He told me of his wife. He had 
written to me of his marriage some years before. She was 
his balance-wheel, he said. I recollect that he hkened her 
to Madam Guyon. At the close of the entertainment, we 

268 



"THE WANDERING JEW" 

shook hands cordially and exchanged expressions of mutual 
regard. We never met again. 

How much or how little I was indebted to him for the 
success of my first book, I am unable to determine. I shall 
ever cherish the recollection of his generous spirit and stead- 
fast adherence to his vow of service, as one of the most 
interesting and gratifying episodes of my authorly career. 



XXVII 

MY NORTHERN KINSPEOPLE — "quELQU'un" AND A LIFE- 
LONG FRIENDSHIP 

I REWROTE the new book that winter, reading it, chapter 
by chapter, aloud to my father, in the evening. He was a 
judicious critic, and I need not repeat here how earnest 
and rapt a hstener. I had received proposals for the pub- 
lication of my "next book" from six Northern publishers. 
In the spring my father went to New York and arranged 
for the preliminaries with the, then, flourishing firm of 
Derby & Jackson. 

It was brought out while I was in Boston that summer, 
under the title of The Hidden Path. I anticipate dates in 
jotting down here that I had my first taste of professional 
envy in connection with this book. 

My journeying homeward in September was broken by 
a fortnight's stay at the hospitable abode of the Derbys 
in Yonkers. I was at a reception in New York one even- 
ing, when my unfortunately acute hearing brought to me 
a fragment of a conversation, not intended for my edifica- 
tion, between my publisher and a literary woman of note. 
Mr. Derby was telling her, after the tactless manner of men, 
how well The Hidden Path had "done" at the Trade Sales 
just concluded. 

"Ah!" said the famous woman, icily. "And I suppose 
she is naturally greatly elated?" 

Mr. Derby laughed. 

"She hides it well if she is. Have you read the book?" 

270 



MY NORTHERN KINSPEOPLE 

"Yes. You were good enough to send me a copy, you 
know. It is quite a creditable school-girl production." 

I moved clean out of hearing. I told Mr. Derby, after- 
ward, what I had heard, adding that my chief regret was 
at the lowering of my ideal of professional generosity. Up 
to that moment I had met with indulgent sympathy and 
such noble freedom from envious hypercriticism, as to 
foster the fondly-cherished idea that the expression of lofty 
sentiment presupposes the ever-present dwelling of the 
same within the soul. In simpler phrase, that the proverb — 
"Higher than himself can no man think," had its converse 
in — "Lower than himself can no man be," 

In this I erred. I grant it, in this one instance. I had 
judged correctly of the grand Guild to which I aspired, with 
yearnings unutterable, to belong. 

It was an eventful summer. My father and I had gone 
on to Boston from New York, setting out, the same week, 
for a tour through the White ]\Iountains. I was the only 
woman in the party. Our friend, Ned Rhodes, a distant 
cousin, Henry Field, of Boston, and my father completed 
the quartette. Ten days afterward, we two — my father and 
I — met a larger travelling party in New York. Mr. and 
Mrs. William Terhune, Mrs. Greenleaf, the widow of Doc- 
tor Hoge's friend; "Staff" Little, the brother of Mrs. 
William Terhune, and Edward Terhune, now the pastor 
of a church at Charlotte C. H., Virginia, composed the 
company which joined itself to us, and set forth merrily 
for Niagara and the Lakes. 

The trip accomplished, I settled down comfortably and 
happily in Boston and the charming environs thereof for 
the rest of the season. 

Another halcyon summer! 

If I have made scant mention of my father's kindred in 
the land of his birth, it is because this is a story of the 
Old South and of a life that has ceased to be, except in the 

271 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

hearts of the very few who may take up the boast of the 
Grecian historian — "Of which I was a part." 

I should be an ingrate of a despicable type were I to pass 
by as matters of no moment, the influences brought to 
bear upon my life at that date, and through succeeding 
years, by mj'^ association with the several households who 
made up the family connection in that vicinity. 
/ My grandmother's brother. Uncle Lewis Pierce, owned 
[ and occupied the ancient homestead in Dorchester. He 
\was "a character" in his way. Handsome in his youth, 
he was still a man of imposing presence, especially when, 
attired in black broadcloth, and clean shaven, he sat on 
Sunday in the pew owned by the Pierces for eight genera- 
tions in the old church on "Meeting House Hill." He did 
not always approve of the doctrine and politics of the 
officiating clergyman. He opened his mind to me to this 
effect one Sunday that summer, as we jogged along in his 
low-hung phaeton, drawn by a horse as portly and as well- 
set-up as his master. 

"The man that is to hold forth to-day is what my wife 
scolds me for calling 'one of those higher law devils,'" he 
began by saying. "He is of the opinion that the law, for- 
bidding slavery and denying rights to the masters of the 
slaves and all that, ought to set aside the Constitution 
and the laws made by better men and wiser heads than 
his. He'd override them all, if he could. I've nothing to 
say against a man's having his own notions on that, or 
any other subject, but if he's a minister of the gospel, he 
ought to preach the truth he finds in the Bible, and keep 
his confounded politics out of the pulpit." 

He leaned forward to flick a fly from the sleek horse 
with his whip. 

"I've been given to understand that he doesn't like to 
see me and some others of the same stripe in church when 
he preaches for us. I pay no attention to that. If he, 

272 



MY NORTHERN KINSPEOPLE 

or any others of his damnable way of thinking, imagine 
that I'm to be kept out of the church in which the Pierces 
owned a pew before this man and his crew were ever 
thought of, he'll find himself mistaken. That's all there 
is about it!" 

It was worth seeing, after hearing this, the sturdy 
old representative of the Puritans, sitting bolt upright in 
the quaint box-pew where his forbears had worshipped the 
God of battles over a century before, and keeping what he 
called his "weather eye" upon the suspected expounder of 
the gospel of peace. The obnoxious occupant of the an- 
cient and honorable pulpit was, to my notion, an amiable 
and inoffensive individual. He preached well, and with 
never an allusion to "higher law." Yet Uncle Lewis kept 
watch and ward throughout the service. I could easily 
believe that he would have arisen to his feet and challenged 
audibly any approach to the forbidden territory. 

The day and scene were recalled forcibly to my memory 
by a visit paid to my Newark home in 1864 by Francis 
Pierce, the protestant's oldest son, on his way home from 
Washington. He was one of a committee of Dorchester 
citizens sent to the Capital to look after the welfare of 
Massachusetts troops called into the field by a Republican 
President. 

The wife of the head of the Picroe homestead was one of 
the loveliest women ever brought into a world where saints 
are out of place. Near her lived an old widow, who was 
a proverb for captiousness and wronghcadedness, I never 
heard her say a kind or charitable word of neighbor or 
friend, until she astounded me one day by breaking out into 
a eulogy upon Aunt Pierce and Cousin Melissa, Francis's wife : 

"We read in the Scriptures that God is love. I allers 
think of them two women when I hear that text. It 
might be said of both of 'em: they are jest love — through 
an' through!" 

273 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I carried the story to the blessed pair, you may be sure. 
Whereupon, my aunt smiled compassionately. 

"Poor old lady! People who don't know how much 
trouble she has had, are hard upon her. We can't judge 
one another unless we know all sides of a question. She 
is greatly to be pitied." 

And Cousin Melissa, in the gentle tone she might have 
learned from her beloved mother-in-law — "I always think 
that nobody is cross unless she is unhappy." 

Aurora Leigh had not been written then. If it had 
been, neither of the white-souled dears would have read 
a word of it. Yet Mrs. Browning put this into the mouth 
of her heroine : 

"The dear Christ comfort you! 
You must have been most miserable 
To be so cruel!" 

The old house was a never-ending delight to me. It was 
built in 1640 (see Chapter I), ten years after the good ship 
Mary and John brought over from Plymouth the Massa- 
chusetts Bay Colony, landing her passengers in Boston. 
Robert Pierce (or Percie) was, although a blood connection 
of the Northumberland Percies, the younger son of a 
younger son, and so far "out of the running" for title or 
fortune on that account, that he sought a home and liveli- 
hood in the New World. 

My ancestress, Ann Greenaway, whose tedious voyage 
from England to Massachusetts was beguiled by her court- 
ship and marriage to stalwart "Robert of Dorchester," 
bore him many robust sons and "capable," if not fair 
daughters, dying at last in the Dorchester homestead at 
the ripe age of one hundred and four. 

From her the long line of descendants may have in- 
herited the stout constitutions and stouter hearts that gave 

274 



MY NORTHERN KINSPEOPLE 

and kept for them a place in every community in which 
they have taken root. 

The story of the Pierce Homestead is told in Some Colo- 
nial Homesteads more at length than I can give it here. 

The Virginia cousin was cordially welcomed to the cradle 
of her foremothers, and a warm attachment grew up be- 
tween me and each member of the two households. My 
cousin Francis had built a modern house upon a corner 
of the homestead grounds, and I was as happily at home 
there as in the original nest. 

Another adopted home — and in which I spent more 
time than in all the rest put together — was that of my 
cousin, Mrs. Long, "the prettiest of the three Lizzies" re- 
ferred to in one of my letters. Her mother, my father's 
favorite relative, had died since my last visit to Boston. 
Her daughter was married at her death-bed. She was a 
beautiful and intelligent woman, wedded to a man of con- 
genial tastes who adored her. The intimacy of this one 
of our Yankee cousins and ourselves began before Mea 
and I had ever seen her. My sister and "Lizzie" were 
diligent correspondents from their school-days. To a 
chance remark of mine relative to their letters, I owe one 
of the most stable friendships that has blessed my life. 

We sisters were in the school-room at recess one day 
when I was fourteen, Mea sixteen. I was preparing a 
French exercise for M. Guillet, Mea writing to Boston. We 
had the room to ourselves for the time. My sister looked 
up from her pai)er to say : 

"What shall I say to Lizzie for you?" 

"Give her my love, and tell her to provide me with a 
correspondent as charming as herself." 

In her reply Lizzie begged leave to introduce a particular 
friend of her own, "intelligent and lovable — altogether in- 
teresting, in fact." This friend had heard her talk of her 
Southern cousins and wished to know them; but I must 
19 275 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

write the first letter. I caught at the suggestion of what 
commended itself to me as adventure, and it was an 
epistolary age. Letters long and niunerous, filled with 
details and disquisitions, held the place usurped by tele- 
phone, telegraph, and post-cards. We had time to write, 
and considered that we could not put it to a better pur- 
pose. So the next letter from my sister to my cousin con- 
tained a four-pager from me, addressed to "Quelqu'une." 
I gave fancy free play in conversing with the unknown, 
writing more nonsense than sober reason. I set her in the 
chair opposite mine, and discoursed at her of "divers say- 
ings." If not 

"Of ships and shoes and sealing-wax 
And cabbages and kings" — 

of wars and rumors of wars, and school duties, and current 
literature. 

In due time I had a reply in like strain, but to my con- 
sternation, written in a man's hand, and signed "Quel- 
qu'un." He apologized respectfully for the ambiguous terms 
of the introduction that had led me into a mistake as to 
his sex, and hoped that the silver that was beginning to 
stipple his dark hair would guarantee the propriety of a 
continued correspondence. 

"Time was," he mused, "when I could conjugate Amo 
in all its moods and tenses. Now I get no further than 
Amabam, and am constrained to confess myself in the 
tense at which I halt." 

We had written to one another once a month for two 
years before the sight of a note to Lizzie tore the 
mask from the face of my graybeard mentor, and con- 
firmed my father's suspicions as to his identity with Ossian 
Ashley, the husband of Aunt Harriet's elder daughter. 
The next visit I paid to Boston brought us together in the 
intimacy of the family circle. He never dropped the role 

276 



"QUELQU'UN" 

of elderly, and as time rolled on, of brotherly friend. He 
was, at that date, perhaps thirty-five years of age, and a 
superb specimen of robust manhood. I have seldom be- 
held a handsomer man, and his port was kingly, even when 
he had passed his eightieth birthday. Although a busy 
man of affairs, he was a systematic student. His library 
might have been the work-shop of a professional litterateur; 
he was a regular contributor to several journals upon finan- 
cial and literary topics, handling each with grace and 
strength. His translation of Victor Cherbuliez's Count Kosta 
was a marvellous rendering of the tone and sense of the 
original into elegant English. He was an excellent French 
and Latin scholar, and, when his son entered a German 
university, set himself, at sixty-odd, to study German, that 
he ''might not shame the boy when he came home." 

Before that, he had removed to New York City, and en- 
gaged in business there as a railway stock-brokei'. He 
was, up to a few months prior to his death. President of the 
Wabash Railway, and maintained throughout his blame- 
less and beneficent life, a reputation for probity, energy, 
and talent. 

Peace to his knightly soul! 

He was passing good to me that summer. In company 
with his wife, we drove, sailed, and visited steamships. 
Bunker Hill Monimient, and other places of historic interest. 
In their society I made my first visit to the theatre, and 
attended concerts and lectures. He lent me books, and 
led me on to discuss them, then, and when I was at home. 
And this when he was building up his business, looking 
after various family interests, not strictly his own (he was 
forever lending a hand to somebody!), and studying late 
into the night, as if working for a university degree. I 
am told that such men are so rare in our time and country 
as to make this one of my heroes a phenomenon. 

It is not marvellous that friendships like these, enjoyed 

277 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

when character and opinion were in forming, should have 
cultivated optimism that has withstood the shock and 
undermining of late disappointments. It may well be that 
I have not known another man who, with his fortune to 
found, a household to support, and a press of mental toil 
that would have exhausted the energies of the average 
student, would have kept up a correspondence with a 
child for the sake of pleasing and educating her, and car- 
ried it on out of affectionate interest in a provincial kins- 
woman. 

Affection and genial sympathy, with whatever con- 
cerned me or mine, endured to the end. He was my hus- 
band's warm friend, a second father to my children — al- 
ways and everywhere, my ally. 

My last sight of him, before he succumbed to lingering 
and mortal illness, is vividly present with me. We had 
dined with him and his wife, and said to ourselves as we 
had hundreds of times, that time had mellowed, without 
dimming her beauty, and made him magnificent. The 
word is none too strong to describe him, as he towered above 
me in the parting words exchanged in light-heartedness 
unchecked by any premonition that we might never chat 
and laugh together again this side of the Silent Sea. He 
was over six feet in height; his hair and flowing beard were 
sil ver- white ; his fine eyes darker and brighter by con- 
trast; his smile was as gentle and his repartee as ready as 
when he had jested with me in those bygone summers 
from which the glory has never faded for me. 

My upturned face must have expressed something of 
what filled heart and thoughts, for he drew me up to him 
suddenly, and kissed me between the eyes. Then, with the 
laugh I knew so well, he held out his hand to my hus- 
band: • 

"You mustn't be jealous, my dear fellow! I knew her 
a long time before you ever saw her. And such good friends 

278 



"QUELQU'UN" 

as we have been for — bless my soul! — can it be more than 
fifty years?" 

Again I say: "God rest his knightly soul!" It is worth 
living to have known one such man, and to have had him 
for my ''good friend" for "more than fifty years." 



XXVIII 

MY FIRST OPERA — " PETER PARLEY" — RACHEL AS "cAMILLE" 
— BAYARD TAYLOR — T. B. ALDRICH — G. P. MORRIS — MARIA 
CUMMINS — MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY 

The three weeks passed in New York on my way home 
were thronged with novel and enchanting "sensations." 
I saw my first opera — Masaniello, and it was the debut of 
Elise Henssler. The party of which I was a member in- 
cluded Caroline Cheeseboro, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, and 
Samuel Griswold Goodrich — "Peter Parley." To my 
intense satisfaction, my seat was beside the kindly old 
gentleman. 

Was not Parley's Magazine the first periodical I had ever 
read ? And had not I devoured every book he had written, 
down to a set of popular biographies for which my father 
had subscribed as a gift to me on my eighteenth birthday? 
That I should, really and truly, be sitting at his side and 
hearing him speak, was a treat I could hardly wait until 
to-morrow to dilate upon in my home-diary letter. He 
was social and amusing, and, withal, intelligently appre- 
ciative of the music and actors. He rattled away jovially 
in the entr'actes of other operas and personal traits of stage 
celebrities, theatrical, and operatic. He told me, too, of 
how he had been ridiculed for embarking upon a career 
his friends thought puerile and contemptible, when he is- 
sued the initial number of Parley's Magazine. If I was 
secretly disappointed that his affection for his juvenile 
constituency was more perfunctory than I had supposed 

280 



MY FIRST OPERA 

from his writings, I smothered the feehng as disloyal, and 
would be nothing short of charmed. 

I wrote to my mother next day that he was "a nice, 
friendly old gentleman, but impressed me as one who had 
outlived his enthusiasms." If I had put the truth into 
downright English, I should have said that the circum- 
stance that he was enshrined in thousands of young hearts 
as the aged man with a sore foot propped upon a cushion, 
and whose big heart was a fountain of love, and his brain 
a store-house of tales garnered for their delectation — was 
of minor importance to the profit popularity had brought 
him. I was yet new to the world's ways and estimate of 
values. 

The next night I saw Rachel in Les Horaces. I had 
never seen really great acting before. I had, however, 
read Charlotte Bronte's incomparable portraiture, in Vil- 
lette, of the queen of the modern stage. Having no lan- 
guage of my own that could depict what was done before 
my eyes, and uttered to my rapt soul, I drew upon obedi- 
ent memory. Until that moment I had not known how 
faithful memory could be. In the breathless excitement 
of the last act of the tragedy, every word was laid ready 
to my hand. I seemed to read, with my subconscious per- 
ceptions, lines of palpitating light, the while my bodily 
sight lost not a gesture or look of the stricken tigress: 

"An inordinate will, convulsing a perishing mortal frame, 
bent it to battle with doom and death; fought every inch 
of ground, sold every drop of blood; resisted to the last the 
rape of every faculty ; would see, would hear, would breathe, 
would live, up to, within, well-nigh beyond the moment 
when Death says to all sense and all being — 'Thus far and 
no farther!' " 

I saw others — some said as great actors — in after years. 
Among them, Ristori. I do not think it was because I 
had seen none of them before the Vashti of Charlotte 

281 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Bronte's impassioned periods flashed upon my unaccus- 
tomed sight, that I still hold her impersonation of Camille 
in Les Horaces to be the grandest triumph of the tragedian's 
art mine eyes have ever witnessed. Ristori was always the 
gentlewoman, born and reared, in whatever role she as- 
sumed. Rachel — and again I betake myself to the weird 
word-painting: 

"Evil forces bore her through the tragedy; kept up her 
feeble strength. . . . They wrote 'Hell' on her straight, 
haughty brow. They tuned her voice to the note of 
torment. They writhed her regal face to a demoniac mask. 
Hate and Murder and Madness incarnate, she stood." 

I fancy that I must have been whispering the words as 
I gathered up my wraps and followed my companions out 
of the box. I recollect that one or two persons stared 
curiously at me. In the foyer I was introduced to some 
strangers, and went through certain civil forms of speech. 
I did not recollect names or faces when we got back to the 
hotel. After I was in bed, I could not sleep for hours. 
But one other actor has ever wrought so mightily upon 
nerves and imagination. When I was forty years older 
I was ill for forty-eight hours after seeing Salvini as Othello. 

During this memorable stay in New York I met Bayard 
\ Taylor. At the conclusion of his first call, I rushed to my 
desk and wrote to my sister: 

"He has a port like Jove. 

"'Nature might stand up 



}}>)> 



And say to all the world: "'This is a man! 

For once my ideal did not transcend the reality. Would 
that I could say it of all my dream-heroes and heroines! 
At his second call, Mr. Taylor was accompanied by Richard 
Henry Stoddard. At his first, he brought Charles Frederick 
Briggs, journalist and author, whose best-known book, 

282 



BAYARD TAYLOR — T. B. ALDRICH 

Harry Franco, I had read and liked. I met him but once. 
Mr. Taylor honored me with his friendship until his la- 
mented death. My recolleetions of him are all pleasant. 

We met seldom, but our relations were cordial; the re- 
newal of personal association was ever that of friends who 
liked and understood each other. I reckoned it a favor 
that honored me, that his widow accepted me as her hus- 
band's old acquaintance, and that his memory has drawn 
us together in bonds of affectionate regard. 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich was then (in 1855) a mere 
stripling, yet already famous as the author of Bahie Bell 
and Elsinore, poems that would have immortalized him 
had he not written another line. I came to know him well 
during my Northern sojourn. His charming personality 
won hearts as inevitably as his genius commanded admira- 
tion. Halleck's hackneyed eulogy of his early friend might 
be applied, and without dissent, to the best-beloved of our 
later poets. To know him was to love him. The mag- 
netism of the rarely-sweet smile, the frank sincerity of his 
greeting, the direct appeal of the clear eyes to the brother- 
heart which, he took for granted, beat responsive to his, 
were irresistible, even to the casual acquaintance. His 
letters were simply bewitching — as when I wrote to him 
after each of us had grown children, asking if he would give 
my youngest daughter the autograph she coveted from 
his hand. 

He began by begging me to ask him, the next time I 
wrote, for something that he could do, not for what was 
impossible for him to grant. He had laid it down as a 
rule, not to be broken under any temptation, whatsoever, 
that he would never give his autograph. 

"If I could make an exception in the present case, you 
know how gladly I would do it, only to prove that I am un- 
alterably your friend, 

"Thomas Bailey Aldrich." 
283 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

He graced whatever he touched, and made the common- 
place poetic. The ineffable tenderness and purity of his 
verse were the atmosphere in which the man lived and 
moved and breathed. The mystic afflatus of the born 
poet clothed him, as with a garment. 
"" George P. Morris I met again and again. With the 
frank conceit, so permeated with the amiability and naivete 
of the veteran songster, that it offended nobody, he told 
me how Braham had sung Woodman, Spare That Tree, be- 
fore Queen Victoria, at her special request, and that Jenny 
Marsh of Cherry Valley was more of an accepted classic 
than Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch. He narrated, too, the 
thrilling effect produced upon an audience in New York 
or Philadelphia by the singing for the first time in public 
of Near the Rock Where Drooped the Willoio, and smiled 
benignantly on hearing that it was a favorite ballad in our 
home. He was then associated with N. P. Willis in the 
editorship of The New York Mirror, and agreed fully with 
me that it had not its peer among American literary 
periodicals. 

My mother had taken it for years. We had a shelf full 
of the bound volumes at home. I have some of them in 
my own library, and twice or three times in the year, have 
a rainy afternoon-revel over the yeUowed, brittle pages 
mottled with the mysterious, umber thumbmarks of Time. 

Colonel Morris's partner, Nathaniel Parker WiUis, who 
had not yet taken to writing out the name at full length, 
was at his country-seat of "Idlewild." He was ten years 
older when I saw him last, and under circumstances 
that took the sting from regret that I had not met him 
when life was fresh and faiths were easily confirmed. 

While in Dorchester I had enjoyed improving my ac- 
quaintanceship with Maria Cummin^ Encyclopaedias reg- 
ister her briefly as "An American novelist. She wrote 
The Lamplighter," In 1855, no other woman writer was 

284 



MARIA CUMMINS 

so prominently before the reading public. The Lamp- 
lighter was in every home, and gossip of the personality of 
the author was seized upon greedily by press and readers. 
Meeting Augusta Evans, of Rutledge and St. Elmo and 
Beulah, four years thereafter, I was forcibly reminded of 
my Dorchester friend, albeit they belonged to totally 
different schools of literature. Both were quietly refined 
in manner and speech, and incredibly unspoiled by the flood 
of popular favor that had taken each by surprise. Alike, 
too, was the warmth of cordiality with which both greeted 
me, a stranger, whom they might never meet again. 

An amusing incident connected with one of Maria Cum- 
mins's visits broke down any lingering trace of stranger- 
hood. She was to take tea at the house of my cousin, 
Francis Pierce. I was sitting by the window of the draw- 
ing-room, awaiting her arrival and gazing at the panorama 
of Boston Bay and the intervening hills, when an old lady, 
a relative-in-law of "Cousin Melissa," stole in. She was 
over eighty, and so pathetically alone in the lower world 
that Melissa — the personation of Charity, which is Love — 
had granted her home and care for several years. She had 
donned her best cap and gown; as she crept up to me, she 
glanced nervously from side to side, and her withered 
hands chafed one another in agitation she could not con- 
ceal. 

"I say, dearie," she began, in a whisper, bending down 
to my face, ''would you mind if I was to sit in the corner 
over there" — nodding toward the back parlor — "and listen 
to your talk after Miss Cummins comes? I won't make 
the least mite of noise. I am an old woman. I never had 
a chance to hear two actresses talk before, and I may never 
have another." 

I consented, laughingly, and she took up her position 
just in time to escape being seen by the incoming guest. 
We chatted away cheerily at our far window, watching the 

285 



MARION HARLAND^S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

sunset as it crimsoned the bay and faded languidly into 
warm gray. 

"Summer sunsets are associated in my mind, in a dreamy 
way, with the tinkle of cow-bells," observed my com- 
panion, and went on to tell how, as a child, living in Salem, 
she used to watch the long lines of cows coming in from 
the meadows at evening, and how musically the tinkle of 
many bells blended with other sunset sounds. 

"I have the same association with my Virginia home," 
I answered, ''So had Gray with Stoke Pogis. But his 
herd lowed as it wound slowly over the lea." 

"Perhaps English cows are hungrier than ours," Miss 
Cummins followed, in like strain. "I prefer the chiming 
bells." 

We dropped into more serious talk after that. The un- 
seen listener carried off, up-stairs, when she stole out, Uke 
my little gray ghost, but one impression of the "actresses' " 
confabulation. Cousin Melissa told me of it next day. 
The old lady was grievously disappointed. We had talked 
of nothing but cows and cow-bells, and cows coming home 
hungry for supper, and such stuff. " For all the world as if 
they had lived on a dairy-farm all their days!" 

I supped with Miss Cummins and her widowed mother 
a day or so later, and we made merry together over the 
poor crone's chagrin. 

It was rather singular that in our several meetings 
'^ neither of us spoke of Adeline D. T. Whitney. She had not 
then written the books that brought for her love and fame 
in equal portions. But she was Maria Cummins's dear 
friend, and a near neighbor of the Pierces. When we, at 
last, formed an intimacy that ceased only with her life, we 
wondered why this should have been delayed for a score 
of years, when we had so nearly touched, during that and 
other visits to my ancestral home. 

At our earliest meeting in her Milton cottage, whither 

286 



MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY 

I had gone by special invitation, she hurried down the 
stairs with outstretched hands and — "I cannot meet you 
as a stranger. My dear friend, Maria Cummins, has often 
talked to me of you!" 

In the hasty sketch of a few representative members of 
the Literary Guild of America, as it existed a half-century 
ago, I have made good what I intimated a few chapters 
back, in alluding to my introductory experience of pi;o- 
fessional jealousies, which, if cynics are to be credited, per- 
vade the ranks of authors, as the mysterious, fretting 
leprosy ate into the condemned garment of the ancient 
Israelite. In all frankness, and with a swelling of heart 
that is both proud and thankful, I aver that no other order, 
or class, of men and women is so informed and permeated 
and colored with generous and loyal appreciation of what- 
ever is worthy in the work of a fellow-craftsman ; so little 
jealous of his reputation; so ready to make his wrongs com- 
mon property, and to assist the lowUest member of the 
Guild in the hour of need. 

I make no exception in favor of any profession or call- 
ing, in offering this humble passing tribute to the Fraternity 
of American Authors. I could substantiate my assertion 
by countless illustrations drawn from personal observa- 
tion, had I space and time to devote to the task. In my 
sixty years of literary life, I have known nearly every 
writer of note in our country. In reviewing the list, I 
bow in spirit, as the seer of Patmos bent the knee in the 
presence of the shining ones, 



XXIX 

ANNA CORA (MOWATT) RITCHIE — EDWARD EVERETT — GOV- 
ERNOR WISE — A MEMORABLE DINNER-PARTY 

In 1854, Anna Cora Mo watt, "American actress, novelist, 
dramatist, and poet," as the cycloptcdias catalogue her, left 
the stage to become the wife of William Foushee Ritchie, 
of Richmond, Virginia. 

Mrs. Mowatt, nee Ogden, was the daughter of a promi- 
nent citizen of New York. She was born in France, and 
partially educated there. Returning to America, she mar- 
ried, in her sixteenth year, James Mowatt, a scholarly and 
wealthy man, but much the senior of the child-wife. By a 
sudden reverse of fortune he was compelled to relinquish 
the beautiful country home on Long Island, to which he 
had taken his wife soon after their marriage. With the 
romantic design of saving the home she loved, Mrs. Mowatt 
began a series of public readings. Her dramatic talent 
was already well known in fashionable private circles. At 
the conclusion of the round of readings given in New York 
and vicinity, she received a proposal from a theatrical 
manager to go upon the stage. For nine years she was a 
prime favorite with the American theatre-going public, 
and almost as popular abroad. She never redeemed 
"Ravenswood," and her husband died while she was in the 
zenith of her brilliant success. 

Her union with William Ritchie, who had admired her 
for a long time, was a love-match on both sides. He 
brought her to quiet Richmond, and installed her in a 

288 



ANNA CORA (MOWATT) RITCHIE 

modest cottage on our side of the town, but three blocks 
from my father's house. The Ritchies were one of the best 
of our oldest families; Mrs. Mowatt belonged to one as 
excellent; her character was irreproachable. I recollect 
Doctor Haxall insisting upon this when a very conserva- 
tive Mrs. Grundy "wondered if we ought to visit her." 

" You will see, madam, that she will speedily be as popu- 
lar here as she has been elsewhere. She is a lovely woman, 
and as to reputation — hers is irreproachable — absolutely! 
No tongue has ever wagged against her." 

I listened with curiosity that had not a tinge of personal 
concern in it. It went without saying that an ex-actress 
was out of my sphere. The church that condemned dan- 
cing was yet more severe upon the theatre. True, Mrs. 
Ritchie had left the stage, and, it was soon bruited abroad, 
never recited except in her own home and in the fine old 
colonial homestead of Brandon, where lived Mr. Ritchie's 
sister, Mrs. George Harrison. But she had trodden the 
boards for eight or nine years, and that stamped her as a 
personage quite unhke the rest of ''us." 

So when William Ritchie stopped my father on the 
street and expressed a wish that his wife and I should 
know each other, he had a civil, non-committal reply, em- 
bodying the fact that I was expecting to go North soon, 
and would not be at home again before the autumn. 

During my absence my father sent me a copy of the 
Enquirer containing a review of The Hidden Path, written 
by Mrs. Ritchie, so complimentary, and so replete with 
frank, cordial interest in the author, that I could not do 
less than to call on my return and thank her. 

She was not at home. I recall, with a flush of shame, how 
relieved I was that a card should represent me, and that 
I had "done the decent thing." The "decent thing," in 
her opinion, was that the call should be repaid within the 
week. 

289 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

No picture of her that I have seen does her even partial 
justice. In her youth she was extremely pretty. At 
thirty-eight, she was more than handsome. Time had 
not dimmed her exquisite complexion; her hair had been 
cut off during an attack of brain-fever, and grew out again 
in short, fair curls; her eyes were soft blue; her teeth 
dazzlingly white. Of her smile Edgar Allan Poe had 
written: "A more radiant gleam could not be imagined." 
In manner, she was as simple as a child. Not with studied 
simplicity, but out of genuine self-forgetfulness. 

She struck what I was to learn was the keynote to char- 
acter and motive, before I had known her ten minutes. I 
essayed to thank her for what she had said of my book. 
She listened in mild surprise: 

"Don't thank me for an act of mere justice. I liked the 
book, I write book-reviews for my husband's paper. I 
could not do less than say what I thought." 

And — at my suggestion that adverse criticism was whole- 
some for the tyro — "Why should I look for faults when 
there is so much good to be seen without searching?" 

A woman of an utterly different type sounded the same 
note a score of years afterward. 

I said to Frances Willard; whose neighbor I was at a 
luncheon given in her honor by the wife of the Command- 
ant at Fort Mackinac: 

"You know, Miss Willard, that, as General Howard said 
just now of us, you and I ' don't train in the same band.' " 

"No?" The accent and the sweet candor, the in- 
effable womanliness of the eyes that sought mine, touched 
the spring of memory. "Suppose, then, we talk only of 
the many points upon which we do agree? Why seek for 
opposition when there are so many harmonies close at 
hand?" 

Of such peacelovers and peacemakers is the kingdom 
of heaven, by whatsoever name they are called on earth. 

290 



ANNA CORA (MOWATT) RITCHIE 

Mrs. Ritchie was a Swedenborgian. I had learned that 
in her Autobiography of an Actress. All denominations — in- 
cluding some whose adherents would not sit down to the 
Lord's Supper with certain others, and those who would 
not partake of the consecrated "elements" if administered 
by non-prelatic hands — united in shutting and bolting 
the door of heaven in her face. 

In the intimate companionship, unbroken by these and 
other admonitions, I never heard from Mrs. Ritchie's lips 
a syllable that was not redolent with the law of kindness. 
I learned to love her fondly and to revere her with fervor 
I would not have behoved possible, six months earher. It 
was not her fascination of manner alone that attracted 
me, or the unceasing acts of sisterly kindness she poured 
upon me, that deepened my devotion. She opened to me 
the doors of a new world: broadened and deepened and 
sweetened my whole nature. We never spoke of doctrines. 
We rarely had a talk — and henceforward our meetings were 
almost daily— in which she did not drop into my mind 
some precious grain of faith in the All-Father; of love for 
the good and noble in my fellow-man and of compassion, 
rather than blame, for the erring. Of her own church she 
chd not talk. She assumed, rather, that we were "one 
family, above, beneath," and bound by the sacred tie of 
kinship, to "do good and to communicate." She had a 
helpful hand, as well as a comforting word, for the sorrow- 
ing and the needy. As to her benefactions, I heard of 
them, now and again, from others. Now it was an aged 
gentlewoman, worn down to the verge of nervous prostra- 
tion, and too poor to seek the change of air she ought to 
have, who was sent at the Ritchies' expense to Old Point 
Comfort for a month; or a struggling music-mistress, for 
whom Mrs. Ritchie exerted herself quietly to secure pupils; 
or a girl whose talent for elocution was developed by private 
lessons from the ex-actress; or a bedridden matron, who 

20 291 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

had quieter nights after Mrs. Ritchie ran in, two or three 
evenings in a week, to read to her for half an hour in the 
rich, thrilling voice that had held hundreds enchanted in 
bygone days. 

To me she was a revelation of good-will to men. She 
lectured me sometimes, as a mother might and ought, al- 
ways in infinite tenderness. 

**I cannot have you say that, my child!" she said once, 
when I broke into a tirade against the hypocrisy and gen- 
eral selfishness of humankind at large, and certain offend- 
ers in particular. "Nobody is all- wicked. There is more 
unconquered evil in some natures than in others. There 
is good — a spark of divine fire — in every soul God has 
made. Look for it, and you will find it. Encourage it, 
and it will shine." 

And in reply to a murmur during the trial-experiences of 
parish work, when I "deplored the effect of these belittling 
cares and petty commonplaces upon my intellectual 
growth," the caressing hand was laid against my hot cheek. 

"Dear! you are the wife of the man of God! It is a 
sacred trust committed to you as his helpmate. To shirk 
anything that helps him would be a sin. And we climb 
one step at a time, you know — not by bold leaps. Nothing 
is belitthng that God sets for us to do." 

She, and some other things, gave me a royal winter. 

Another good friend, Mrs. Stanard, had notified me that 
Edward Everett, then lecturing in behalf of the Mount 
Vernon Association, was to be her guest while in Rich- 
mond, and raised me to the seventh heaven of delighted 
anticipation by inviting me to meet him at a dinner-party 
she would give him. Mrs. Ritchie forestalled the intro- 
duction to the great man by writing a wee note to me on 
the morning of the day on which the dinner was to be. 

The Mount Vernon Association had for its express ob- 
ject the purchase of Washington's home and bmial-place, 

292 



EDWARD EVERETT 

to be held by the Nation, and not by the remote descendant 
of Mary and Augustine Washington, who had inherited it. 
Mrs. Ritchie was the secretary of the organization. 
Her note said: 

"A committee of our Association will wait upon Mr. Everett 
at the Governor's house this forenoon. I will smuggle you in, 
if you will go with us. I shall call for you at eleven." 

When we four who had come together were ushered into 
the spacious drawing-room of the gubernatorial mansion, 
we had it to ourselves. Mrs. Ritchie, with a pretty gesture 
that reminded one of her French birth, fell to arranging 
five or six chairs near the middle of the room, into a seem- 
ingly careless group. One faced the rest at a conversational 
angle. 

"Now!" she uttered, with a playful pretence of secrecy; 
"you will see Mr. Everett seat himself just there! He can 
do nothing else. Call it a stage trick, if you like. But he 
must sit there!" 

The words had hardly left her hps when Mr. Everett 
entered, accompanied by a younger man, erect in carriage 
and bronzed in complexion, whom he presented to us as 
"My son-in-law. Lieutenant Wise." 

To our secret amusement, Mr. Everett took the chair set 
for him, and this, when three remained vacant after the 
ladies were all seated. 

Lieutenant Wise and I, as the non-attached personages 
present, drifted to the other side of the room while official 
talk went on between the orator-statesman and the com- 
mittee. 

The retentive memory, which has, from my babyhood, 
been both bane and blessing, speedily identified my com- 
panion with the author of Los Gringos (The Yankees), a 
satirical and very clever work that had fallen in my way 

293 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

a couple of years before. He was a cousin of the Governor. 
I learned to-day of his connection with the Everetts. 

He was social, and a witty talker. I had time to discover 
this before the Governor appeared with his daughter, a 
charming girl of seventeen, who did the honors of the house 
with unaffected grace and ease. 

I had met her before, and I knew her father quite well. 
Mrs. Ritchie had taken herself severely to task that very 
week for speaking of him as "our warm-hearted, hot- 
headed Governor." 

The characterization was just. We all knew him to be 
both, and loved him none the less for the warm temper 
that had hurried him into many a scrape, political and 
personal. We were rather proud of his belligerency, and 
took real pride in wondering what "he would do next." 
He was eloquent in debate, a bitter partisan, a warrior 
who would fight to the death for friend, country or prin- 
ciple. Virginia never had a Governor whom she loved 
more, and of whom she was more justly proud. 

This was early in the year 1856. I do not recollect that 
I ever visited the state drawing-room of the mansion again, 
until I stood upon a dais erected on the very spot where 
Lieutenant Wise and I had chatted together that brilliant 
winter day, and I lectured to crowded parlors in behalf 
of the Mary Washington Monument Association. Another 
Governor reigned in the stead of our warm-hearted and 
hot-headed soldier. Another generation of women than 
that which had saved the son's tomb to the Nation was 
now working to erect a monument over the neglected grave 
of the mother. 

When the throng had dispersed, "Annie" Wise, now 
Mrs. Hobson — and still of a most winsome presence — and 
I withdrew into a corner to speak of that five-and-forty- 
year-old episode, and said: "The fathers, where are they? 
And the prophets — they do hve forever!" 

294 



A MEMORABLE DINNER-PARTY 

Of the group collected about Mr. Everett, on the noon 
preceding the deUvery of his celebrated oration, but we 
two were left aUve upon the earth. 

Of the Stanard dinner I retain a lively recollection. 
Among the guests were Lieutenant Wise; Mr. Corcoran, 
the Washington banker and philanthropist; his slim, en- 
gaging young daughter (afterward Mrs. Eustis), and Mr. 
Everett's son, Sidney. Mrs. Stanard was the most judi- 
cious and gracious of hostesses. "A fashionable leader of 
fashionable society!" sneered somebody in my hearing, 
one day. 

Mrs. Ritchie took up the word promptly. Detraction 
never passed unchallenged in her presence. 

"Fashionable, if you will. But sincere. She is a true- 
hearted woman." 

In subscribing heartily to the truth of the statement, I 
append what I had abundant reason to know and believe. 
She was a firm friend to those she loved, steadfast in affec- 
tion that outlasted youth and prosperity. 

She made life smooth for everybody within her reach 
whenever she could do it. She had the inestimable talent 
of divining what would best please each of her guests, and 
ministered to weakness and desire. 

On this night, she did not need to be told that a personal 
talk with the chief guest would be an event to me. She 
lured me adroitly into a nook adjoining the drawing-room, 
and as Mr. Everett, who was staying in the house, passed 
the door, she called him in, and presently left me on his 
hands for half an hour. He was always my beau ideal of 
the perfect gentleman. He talked quietly, in refined modu- 
lations and chaste English that betokened the scholar. 
Like all really great men, he bore himself with modest dig- 
nity, with never a touch of bluster or self-consciousness. 
In five minutes I found myself listening and repl)dng, as 
to an old acquaintance. His voice was low, and so musical 

295 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

as to fasten upon him the sobriquet of the "silver-tongued 
orator." I could repeat, almost verbatim, his part of our 
talk on that occasion. I give the substance of one section 
that impressed me particularly. 

We spoke of Hiawatha, then a recent publication. Mr. 
Everett thought that Longfellow transgressed artistic rules, 
and was disobedient to literary precedent in translating 
Indian names in the text of the poem. The repetition of 
"Minnehaha— Laughing Water," ''The West Wind— Mud- 
jekeewis," ''Ishkooda — the Comet," etcetera, was affected 
and tedious. 

"Moreover," he continued, smiling, "I have serious 
doubts respecting the florid metaphors and highly figura- 
tive speech which Cooper and other writers of North Ameri- 
can Indian stories have put into the mouths of their dusky 
heroes." He went on to say that, when Governor of 
Massachusetts, he received a deputation of aborigines from 
the Far West. In anticipation of the visit, he primed him- 
self with an ornate address of welcome, couched in the 
figurative language he imagined would be familiar and 
agreeable to the chiefs. This was delivered through an 
interpreter, and received in blank silence. Then the prin- 
cipal sachem repUed in curt platitudes, with never a trope 
or allegorical allusion. Mr. Everett added that he had 
learned since that the vocabulary of the modern Indian 
is meagre and prosaic in the extreme. 

The justice of the observation was borne in upon me 
when I sat in James Redpath's box at the Indian Exhibi- 
tion I have spoken of in another chapter, and heard 
snatches of alleged oratory as transmitted by a fluent 
interpreter to the Newark audience. Anything more tame 
and bare it would be hard to imagine. 



XXX 

A MUSICAL CONVENTION — GEORGE FRANCIS ROOT — WHEN 
*'tHE shining shore" was first sung THE HALLELU- 
JAH CHORUS — BETROTHAL — DEMPSTER IN HIS OLD AGE 

Reversing the wheel of Time by a turn or two, we are 
in the thick of preparations for the Christmas of 1855, 

It is less than a year since I read and re-read a letter 
that had lain among the leaves of my jom'nal for a long 
term of years. It was never read by any eyes except my 
own, and those of him who wrote it. In the solemn con- 
viction that for any other — no matter how near of kin and 
dear of heart — to look upon the hues, would be profanation, 
I burned the old letter. Life is short and uncertain. I 
would take no risks. And what need of keeping what I 
can never lose while memory remains faithful to her trust? 

I require no written or printed record to remind me what 
set that Yule-tide apart from all the anniversaries that 
had preceded it, and distinguished it from all that were to 
follow in its train. 

We had had a guest in the house for three weeks. A 
Musical Convention — the first ever held in Richmond — ^was 
in session under the conduct of Lowell Mason and George 
Francis Root. My father, my sister, my brother Herbert, 
and myself were members of a flourishing Sacred Music 
Society, composed principally of amateurs, and we had 
engaged the distinguished leaders in the profession to pre- 
side over the Conference, by which it was hoped public 
taste in the matter of choir and congregational singing 

297 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

might be improved. Classes were formed for the study of 
methods and for drill in vocahzation. The course would 
be closed by a grand concert, in which no professional 
artists would take part. 

The thought that the imported leaders in the programme 
should be allowed to put up at a hotel was opposed to the 
genius of Southern hospitality. Doctor and Mrs. Lowell 
Mason were the honored guests of Mr. WiUiams, the Presi- 
dent of the Society. My father invited Mr. Root "to make 
our house his home while he was in our city." 

That was the old-fashioned form of asking strangers to 
take bit and sup and bed with us. We made good the 
words, too. The "home" was theirs as truly as it was 
ours. The Convention was advertised to last ten days. 
When the time was nearly expired, the extraordinary suc- 
cess of the experiment induced the projectors to extend 
the time to a month. Mr. Root was for removing to a 
hotel, but we arose up in arms and forbade it. His bon- 
homie, intelligence, and general attractiveness of man- 
ner and disposition had endeared him to us all. We hailed 
as a reprieve the postponement of the date of de- 
parture. He had never seen a Virginia Christmas, and 
here was a special providence he must not overlook. House- 
hold machinery moved as if he had not been there. He 
entered jovially into plans, and connived at confidences — 
the necessary deceits that are to be condoned by agreeable 
surprises in the fulness of time. When the personage 
whom Mea had long ago dubbed "The Young Evangelist," 
appeared upon the scene a week in advance of the holiday, 
and spent three-fourths of each day under our hospitable 
roof — a state of affairs that evidently was no new thing — 
the Professor took in the situation without the quiver of 
an eyelash, and asked never a question. He did more to 
prove how cordially he was one with the family. Discov- 
ering, in the course of the first evening after the new arrival 

298 



A MUSICAL CONVENTION 

had enlarged our circle, that he had an exceptionally fine 
voice, and knew how to use it, he pressed him eagerly into 
service as "the basso he had been longing for," and the 
two sang themselves into each other's good graces inside 
of twenty-four hours. 

I had had a cold for a fortnight, and I made the most of 
my demi-semi-invalidism when there were sessions of the 
Convention at uncanny hours, and secured, instead, quiet 
evenings at home. All of which was transparent to our 
Professor, as I suspected then, and knew subsequently. 
He did not disturb a tete-a-tete one December afternoon 
by bringing down into the parlor a freshly written sheet 
of music he wished to try on the piano. His quartetie 
clustered about the instrument at his summons, and the 
hymn was sung over and over. I sat by the fire and lis- 
tened. At the third repetition, I asked: 

"The music is yours, but where did you get the words?" 

Mr. Root answered that his mother had clipped them 
from a Western paper, and handed them to him. The 
music fitted itself to them in his mind at the first reading. 
He struck the chords boldly in saying it, and the four ren- 
dered the whole hymn with spirit. 

"I am no prophetess," I commented, "nor the daughter 
of a prophet; but I predict that that will be the most popu- 
lar of your compositions. It has all the elements of life, 
and a long life, in it. Once more, please!" 

They sang it with a will: 

"My days are gliding quickly by, 
And I, a pilgrim stranger, 
Would not detain them as they fly, 

Those hours of toil and danger. 
For, oh, we stand on Jordan's strand. 

Our friends are passing over: 
And just before, The Shining Shore, 
We may almost discover." 
299 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Millions have sung it since. Millions more will yield 
heart, soul, and voice to the bound and swing and exultant 
leap of the melody "thought out" by the composer in the 
earliest reading of the anonymous verses. "Almost" has 
been "quite" with him for many a year. 

It was during that Christmas week that I attended 
a full rehearsal of the programme to be given at the grand 
concert. Near the close of the rehearsal, Mr. Root came 
down to the back of the house and dropped into a seat by 
me, among the auditors and lookers-on. He was tired, 
he explained, "and would loaf for the rest of the affair." 
The "affair" wound up with Handel's Hallelujah Chorus. 
My "loafing" neighbor pricked up his ears, as the war- 
horse at sound of the trumpet; sat upright and poured the 
might of heart and voice into the immortal opus. With 
the precision of a metronome, and the fire of a seraph, he 
went through it, from the first to the last note, with never 
a book or score. It was more to us, who had the good 
fortune to be near him, than all the rest of the performance. 

It was inevitable that two of us should recall and speak 
together in awed tones, of Handel's rejoinder to a query, 
as to his emotions in writing the Chorus: 

" I did verily believe that I saw the Great White Throne 
and Him Who sat thereon, and heard the harpers harping 
with their harps, and all God's holy angels." 

I was watching the fine, uplifted head and rapt uncon- 
sciousness of him whose whole frame throbbed and 
thrilled with clarion tones that pealed out, "Hallelujah! 
hallelujah!" when a voice on the other side of me mur- 
mured in my ear: 

"And all that sat there, steadfastly watching him, saw 
his face as it had been the face of an angel." 

I cherish a hundred pleasant and dear memories of our 
musical visitor. I like none other so well as this vision. 
It so befell that my one and only visit to the grave of Oliver 

300 



THE HALLELUJAH CHORUS— BETROTH AL 

Goldsmith was made when the choir of the adjacent Temple 
church was practising the Hallelujah Chorus. Although 
in the heart of mighty London, the place was strangely still 
and solitary. We hngered there until the last chord died 
into silence. It was not necessary for cither of us to put 
into words what held the fancy of both. Only — as we 
turned away we looked up to the sky, and one whis- 
pered, "He is singing it, still!" 

Engagements of marriage were never announced in Old 
Virginia. We took more pains to keep them secret than 
family and friends take nowadays to trumpet them abroad. 
Mr. Derby ran on from New York to spend Christmas and 
the next day with us. He came and departed without an 
intimation of any change in the feelings and prospects of 
his last September guest. Mr. Terhune went back to his 
Charlotte parish; letters travelled regularly and frequently 
back and forth. Some were addressed to me; more bore 
my brother's name on the envelope, to hoodwink village 
post-office gossips. Young men, who were habitual visitors, 
called as often and were received with the olden friendli- 
ness ; I accepted the escort of this, that, and the other one 
impartially, and at will. "The Young Evangelist" was in 
town for a few days of every month, and was more with us 
than anywhere else. And why not? He had visited us 
more intimately than at any other house during his six 
months' occupancy of Doctor Hoge's pulpit. It happened 
repeatedly that he was one of three or four callers in the 
evening. On these occasions he, magnanimously, as he 
phrased it, "never interfered with another fellow's run- 
ning." He was as assiduous in his attentions to girls who 
chanced to be present as Ned Rhodes, Tom Baxter, or 
any other Tom, Dick, or Harry of the party could be to 
me. At ten o'clock he arose, made his adieux in decorous 
sort to the ladies of the house and to the company generally, 
and withdrew. If nobody showed a disposition to fol- 

301 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

low his example, he, to quote again from his tactics, "took 
account of stock," and, having assured himself that the 
others lived in different directions, appeared in the open 
door, overcoat on, hat in hand, and in his mouth a jaunty 
query as to the probability of having company in his walk 
to the Exchange Hotel, where he usually put up. Few 
were bold enough to loiter later when the privileged 
habitue of the house showed so plainly that the family 
kept early hours. After his regrets at the prospect of a 
lonely tramp were uttered, he departed in good earnest. 
He had made but a few rounds of the block when the 
shutters of the front parlor window were closed, the signal 
that the course was clear for a return. 

In mid-April he came to Richmond to receive his wid- 
owed sister, who passed some weeks with us. Mea and I 
had had an engagement with Messrs. Rhodes and Baxter 
to go to a Dempster concert. The pair were so often on 
escort duty that they were dubbed "The Circumstances" 
by our saucy brothers and sisters. It was, according to 
the younglings, a settled matter, when we based our pros- 
pective presence at any festive scene upon "circimistances," 
that Damon and his Pythias should show up in season 
to take us thither. 

Mrs. Greenleaf arrived on Tuesday. Her brother came 
by the noon train on Wednesday. It was not until I 
noted the grave wonder in her blue eyes, as I congratulated 
her and him that they would have the evening to them- 
selves and home-talk, that it dawned upon me how un- 
conventional was the proceeding altogether. North of 
Mason and Dixon's line it would have been downright im- 
propriety for an engaged girl to walk off coolly, in the 
escort of another man, within a few hours after the coming 
of the betrothed whom she had not seen for a month. 

The person who would be supposed to suffer most dis- 
comfort from the outrage to conventionahty was, fortu- 

302 



DEMPSTER IN HIS OLD AGE 

nately, more au fait to Virginia manners and social usages 
than his relative. When I took an opportunity to express 
misgivings lest I might lose ground in her good graces if 
I kept the engagement to hear the famous ballad-singer, 
I was bidden not to "waste a thought on that matter, but 
to enjoy the concert with all my heart. For his part, he 
was delighted that I had the chance to go." 

So, when our escorts appeared, I carried off a light 
heart, and was obedient to the injunction to get all the 
enjoyment that Dempster, then evidently in the decadence 
of his powers, could give a music-lover. 

I heard him but that once. I do not regret that I 
went then, although sadness mingled with pleasure while 
we Hstened. Dempster's rendition of English ballads, 
without other accompaniment than the piano played by 
himself, with no effort after brilHancy of execution, had 
moved two continents to smiles and tears. One searches 
vainly for his name in cyclopaedias and dictionary hsts 
of the famous dead. He was now a gray and flabby 
oldish man. His voice was broken in the high register, 
and thickened on the lower; his breath was irregular and 
short. Yet certain passages — notably in the Irish Emi- 
grant's Lament — had sympathetic sweetness that helped 
one to credit the stories of his former successes. He sang 
Tennyson's May Queen all through, not skipping a stanza 
of the three parts. It was a dreary performance, that 
grew absolutely painful before the consumptive was finally 
relegated to the bourne 

" Where the wicked cease from troubling. 
And the weary are at rest." 

"Thank Heaven!" sighed Mr. Rhodes as the last word 
quavered forth; and Mea — "She ought to apologize 
for being such an unconscionably long time in dying." 



XXXI 

WEDDING BELLS — A BRIDAL TOUR — A DISCOVERED RELA- 
TIVE — A NOBLE LIFE 

"Richmond, August l&h, 1856. 

"My very dear Effie, — My long silence has seemed 
strange and may have appeared unkind to you, but there 
have been a thousand hindrances to my writing. 

"A sudden fit of ilhiess interrupted the heaUh that had 
remained firm throughout the warm spring weather, and 
obliged me to make my visit to Goochland earlier than I in- 
tended. For a week or more after my arrival there I was 
worse than I had been at home. When I began to recover, 
the amendment was rapid. 

"To cut short these details, I am most unromantically well 
and robust, am gaining flesh daily, and boast an appetite that 
would throw a sentimental young woman into convulsions 
were she to witness my gastronomic exploits. Yet I have de- 
layed writing to you because I wished to arrange everything 
relating to the final 'performances' before notifying you of 
the same. 

"There have been sundry alterations in the programme 
since you and I last consulted over these things, the principal 
of which is the change of the day and hour. We expect, now, 
to leave home on Tuesday fortnight (September 2d) in the 
morning, instead of (as was first spoken of) on the afternoon 
of Wednesday, the 3d. This will allow us two days in Phila- 
delphia, and, being the plan most approved of by father and 
Mr. Terhune, of course I am submissive. 

"The bridal party will spend both Monday and Tuesday 
evenings, besides breakfasting here on Tuesday morning. So 
you girls may bring evening dresses. 

304 



WEDDING BELLS 

"The bridesmaids are to wear blue muslin or lawn skirts, 
with white muslin basques — a neat breakfast costume that 
will look pretty as a uniform, and be becoming to all of you, 
without throwing my quiet travelling attire too much into 
the shade. You know that at a morning wedding it is cus- 
tomary for each to dress as she pleases. This never pleased 
my fancy. The company wears a motley look. Full bridal 
robes would be equally out of place. Therefore, we have 
selected this medium. 

" Now, ma chore ! cannot you keep your intention of the 
Richmond trip as profound a secret as you have other mat- 
ters we wot of? Your father and mother must be apprized 
of it, and Colonel and Mrs. Graves; but, for a few days, cannot 
the story be kept within the two families? I trust you to 
do this for me, 

"The Charlotte party will come down on Monday, the 1st. 
We shall expect you and Virginia some days in advance of 
that date. I hope to have everything in readiness, even to 
packing my trunks, by the middle of the preceding week, 
and to have time to enjoy your society. Write as soon as your 
plans are formed, and let that time be very soon. As to my 
trousseau — thanks to nimble and kind fingers, the work is 
nearly done. Next week my time is to be divided between 
the dressmaker and a gentleman who writes that he has 
'business to attend to in Richmond,' and who, it is fair to 
presume, may call occasionally. The latest gossip is that 
there is to be a double wedding here next month; that both 
sisters are to be dressed precisely alike and be married in 
the evening. Therefore, come prepared for the v^^orst — or 
the best, as the case may seem. 

"To drop business and jesting together— it is very hard 
to realize that, if Providence permit, one little fortnight will 
bring such a change into my life. Here, in the home of my 
girlhood, where all else is unaltered, and I seem to be welded, 
as it were, into the household chain, I cannot believe that 
my place is so soon to be vacant. Brain and heart are so 
full of crowding thoughts and emotions that I marvel how I 
preserve a composed demeanor. The past, with its tender 

305 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and hallowed memories; the present, with a wealth of calm, 
real happiness; the bright, although vague future, alike strive 
to enchain my mind. 

"I long to see you; to have a good, old-fashioned chat, a 
familiar interchange of our plans and our hopes. There is a 
sentence in your last that promises much — a promise I shall 
surely call upon you to redeem when we meet. I would have 
you feel that by this union you gain, not lose a friend. . . . 

"My love to your mother and to 'Cousin Mag.' May I not 
ask from them a sincere 'God-speed' ? 

"You will not disappoint me, now, dear one? Write at 
once that you are all coming. You and Virginia G. will 
require little preparation — besides the blue skirt and the thin 
muslin spencer (which you are sure to have!), a pair of white 
gloves will be all you need. 

"This is a hasty and, I fear, an incoherent letter, but a full 
freight of love goes with it. As I began, I end with 'Comb!'" 

As may be gathered from this letter, the wedding was 
to be a simple affair — so quiet that it could not be called 
a social function. 

We were of one mind on that point. To secure the pres- 
ence of our most intimate friends, we went through the 
form of selecting bridesmaids and groomsmen. It was the 
custom to have a long train of attendants at large wedding- 
parties, and we took advantage of the fashion to limit the 
company to be assembled on that early September morning 
to "the bridal party" and the family. The exceptions to 
the limit were dear old Doctor Haxall (whose wife was out 
of town) and three friends of the bridegroom. Two were 
from New Jersey and family connections, although not 
related by blood. The other was Mr. Word, of Charlotte, 
the gentlest-hearted of old bachelors — known affectionately 
by his intimates as "Cousin Jimmy." 

Genial old saint! My heart swells now at the flash- 
light picture fastened upon memory of my first sight of, 
and speech with him. He was more closely shaven than 

306 



« 



WEDDING BELLS 

I ever saw him afterward — and he was ever the pink of 
neatness. An expanse of white vest and shirt-bosom cov- 
ered a broad chest that palpitated visibly, as, enfolding 
my hand in both of his, he said, in the best manner of the 
gentleman of the old school (and there are no finer gentle- 
men anywhere) : 

"My dear madam, let me entreat you to regard me from 
this moment as a Brother!" 

No capitals can endow the word with the meaning he 
put into it. He fulfilled his part of the compact nobly. 

To go back to the preparation for the quiet bridal: A 
Richmond fashion I have never known elsewhere, and which 
outlasted the war by some years, was that the bride-elect 
and two or three of her bridesmaids drove from house to 
house a day, or two or three, before the marriage, and left 
cards upon acquaintances who were not bidden to the 
ceremony. This was done in cases where, as with me, it 
was to be a house-wedding, and the attendants were con- 
fined to a few family friends. If there were to be a church- 
wedchng, followed by a reception, or if the ceremony at 
home were to be witnessed by a large party of guests, the 
drive and delivery of cards preceded the "occasion" by a 
week or ten days. To send an invitation to any social 
gathering by post would be a transgression of decorum 
and precedent — a cheap trick unworthy of any one toler- 
ably well versed in social forms. The delivery by the bride 
and her suite was delicately complimentary to those she 
wished to honor. 

In furtherance of our design of keeping even the date 
of the marriage secret up to the last possible hour, we had 
delayed the dehvery of my "P. P. C." cards until Monday. 

At the very bottom of the box of time -discolored letters 
preserved by the friend of my childhood and intimate of 
my girlhood, I found one of these cards. Time's thumb- 
marks have not spared the bit of glazed pasteboard. My 

21 307 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

maiden name is there, and, in the left-hand lower corner, 
"P. P. C." That was all the information it deigned to give 
the curious and the friendly. I was going away — some- 
where. Just when and where was nobody's business. 

It will hardly be believed that we kept our own counsel 
so well that our own servants, while they might have their 
suspicions, were only certain that I was going North on 
Tuesday, as I had often gone on other summers, and that 
the girls who had been visiting me for a week were to re- 
main to a party my sister would give on Tuesday evening. 
Not until Monday morning were any of them, except 
"Mammy Rachel," informed what was on foot. 

The day dawned — if dawn it could be called — through 
steady sheets of rain. No delusive adage of "Rain before 
seven, clear before eleven" ever gained currency in Rich- 
mond. It was as clear to our dismayed souls that this 
was an all-day rain, as that the drive and cards could not 
be postponed until to-morrow. Sampson, the carriage- 
driver, whom we did not dub "coachman" until after the 
war, was notified by the mouth of Tom, the young dining- 
room servant, that he must have the carriage at the door 
at ten o'clock, and prepare for a long expedition. We 
were at the breakfast-table when word came back that 
"it warn't a fittin' day for no young ladies to go out. Nor 
for his carriage an' horses. De ladies will have to put off 
their shoppin' for another time." 

Mea turned upon the respectful emissary with the snap 
of the eyes and incisive accent he knew full well: 

"Say to Sampson that Miss Virginia is to be married 
to-morrow, and that we have to take out cards. He wiU 
be here on time!" 

We had an answer before we left our chairs. 

"Yes, ma'am! He says he'd go if it killed him and the 
horses!" 

We set forth at the appointed hour. Mea, Effie, Vir- 

308 



A BRIDAL TOUR 

ginia Graves, and myself, wrapped up as for a winter 
journey, but in as high spirits as if the sun had shone and 
birds sung blithely in trees that shivered and shrank and 
streamed under the weight of the bitter rain. Poor Tom — 
for the nonce, the footman whose duty it was to jump 
down from his perch at every door before which we sig- 
nalled Sampson to stop, to receive the enveloped card upon 
a silver tray, and to scamper up a walk or up a flight of 
steps, his umbrella held low over the precious consignment 
— had the worst of it all. He was soaked to the skin by 
the time the route was finished and we turned homeward. 
We were out four hours. And in all the four hours the 
rain never intermitted one drop, and the wind only changed 
from the east to blow from all quarters of the heavens at 
once. If coachman and patient footman were drenched, 
we were more than moist, and so chilled that we rejoiced 
with exceeding great joy at the sight of blazing fires in 
chamber and dining-room on our return. 

The home atmosphere was all that it should be on the 
eve of the first wedding in a household where the happi- 
ness of one was the joy of all. Maybe I took it too much 
as a matter of course, then. I value the recollection with 
something akin to jealous fondness. How, all day long, 
while the skies streamed without and the wind dashed the 
water by pailfuls against the windows, mirth and frolic 
within went on like a peal of joy-bells, and every look, 
gesture, and word carried to my heart the sweet persua- 
sion that I was not absent from the thoughts of one of 
them for a moment. 

So certain were we that nothing could "gang agley" — 
and this in the teeth of the storm that had abated naught 
of its fury by nightfall — that when Herbert, who had gone 
to the station to meet the Charlotte party (including Doctor 
Hoge, who was returning from his vacation), brought back 
a rueful countenance and the news that "the flood had 

309 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

washed away a bridge on the DanviUe Railway and made 
it impracticable for trains to run for twenty-four hours," we 
fell upon him with a hail-storm of laughing reproaches that 
swept away the pretence of sorrowful sympathy. 

How could anything go wrong? Not one of us was 
hoaxed for the fraction of a second. 

We took for granted, with the like gay confidence, that 
the tempest would rage itself faint by morning. It was 
no surprise that the day was so brilliantly clear, so fresh 
and fragrant, that Doctor Hoge was reminded of 

"The rose that was newly washed by the shower" — 

and, after the ceremony, strayed from one to another of the 
thirty present, asking if any one could tell him who was 
the author of the Hne. 

Which quest, when comparison of notes elicited the 
fact that ten persons had been catechised, took a place 
among our family jests. 

One incident of the journey to Washington stands out 
in my mind among the thousand and one "coincidences," 
falsely so-called, that star or mar every human life, if we 
wiU but heed them and their consequences. Mr. Terhune, 
and Mr. Cardwell, one of the groomsmen, who went as far 
as Baltimore with us, on his way to speak at a political 
meeting, had gone to look to the luggage after settling me 
in the car in Richmond. The air was close, and I tried to 
raise the window by me. 

"Allow me!" said a pleasant voice in my ear, and a 
strong hand reached forward to perform the trifling service. 

I said, over my shoulder, "Thank you!" catching sight 
of a fine, manly face, lighted by a pair of kind, gray eyes. 
I saw the shadow of the hand that went up to his hat, as 
he uttered some conventional phrase in acknowledgment, 
and thought no more of him until we had taken the Potomac 

310 



A DISCOVERED RELATIVE— A NOBLE LIFE 

boat at Acquia Creek. I recognized my neighbor of the 
train then, in the tall man who tramped the deck to stretch 
long limbs cramped by sitting in the car, and checked his 
walk to pick up and comfort a child that fell headlong in 
running away from its nurse. I was struck by the gentle- 
ness of the handsome giant in handling the baby, and the 
tact he displayed in taking the weeper in his arms, and 
directing his attention to a passing steamer. The little 
fellow stopped crying at once, and, when the frightened 
nurse found the runaway, he clung to the stranger's neck, 
much to the amusement of the latter. He carried him to 
the far end of the boat, talking cheerily with him, and 
finally handed him over to the woman, with a kiss upon 
the baby-lips held up to him. 

The call to dinner diverted my mind from the little 
scene, and it was not until we were in our hotel in 
Washington that I alluded to it, and told Mr. Terhune 
of the courtesy the stranger had rendered me on the 
train. 

"I wish you had mentioned it before," he said. "I 
should have thanked him. I saw him at the hotel last 
night. His name is Brookes, I think. He is a cousin of 
Doctor Hoge. By-the-way, he must be related to your 
mother. And " — laughingly — " naturally, to yourself." 

"Of course!" I broke in, excitedly. "I wish I had 
guessed who he was. It must be the Rev. James Brookes, 
my mother's cousin. You needn't laugh! and you must 
not say 'Another?' He is a splendid fellow. His mother 
was Judith Lacy, and named for my grandmother!" 

As the genealogist of the family, I reckoned up the 
"handsome giant" forthwith. I even knew incidents of 
his family history he never heard until I rehearsed them 
to him in his St. Louis home, thirty years afterward. He 
was, by then, to me the best-beloved of all my clerical 
kinsmen. I upbraided him, when we were made known to 

311 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

one another, for not letting me know who he was at our 
first encounter. 

"My dear cousin! On your wedding-day!" was his ex- 
clamation. "Even the tie of kindred blood would not 
have justified the intermeddling of a stranger at that 
time." 

We made up for the delay of a quarter-century by full 
and glad recognition of the blood-claim. He was a master 
in Israel; eloquent in the pulpit; as a writer, strong and 
convincing ; in parish ministrations, as tender as a woman 
and helpful as a brother. He adorned his profession; as 
a citizen he fought evil with a lion's strength, and succored 
the erring with the wisdom of Paul, the gentleness of John. 

What strength and comfort I drew from intimate asso- 
ciation with this wise, tender, and leal kinsman, may not 
be told here. I can never acknowledge it aright until I 
speak with the tongue of angels. 

More than a dozen years have passed since the Easter 
noon, when the lightning leaped along a thousand miles of 
telegraph lines, to bring me this message from his son-in-law : 

'^ James H. Brookes fell asleep at sunrise on Easter morning." 

Since that glorious awakening he has dwelt forever with 
the Lord. 



XXXII 

PARSONAGE LIFE — WILLIAM WIRT HENRY — HISTORIC SOIL — 
JOHN RANDOLPH — THE LAST OF THE RANDOLPHS 

The village of Charlotte Court-House was a rambling 
hamlet in 1856. The plank-road from the nearest rail- 
way station ("Drake's Branch") entered the village at 
one side, and cut abruptly into the main street. This 
thoroughfare meandered leisurely from a country road at 
each end, through the entire length of the shiretown. It 
was lined irregularly with public and private buildings. 
The Court House, three or four stores, a couple of hotels, 
and perhaps half a dozen residences, made up the nucleus 
of the place. Beyond, and on either side, dwellings — some 
of brick, some of wood — were surrounded by spacious 
grounds embracing shrubbery, plantations, groves, and 
gardens. The " Village Church," a brick edifice hoary with 
years, and redolent of ecclesiastical traditions, stood at the 
left of the plank turnpike as one approached the village 
from the station. A porticoed manor-house, that had a 
history almost as old, faced it across lawn and shrubbery 
on the opposite side of the way. When one had left the 
turnpike for the main street, and driven a quarter of a 
mile or so toward the ''real country," one passed the 
Parsonage. It stood well away from the street, from 
which it was screened by a grove of native oaks. Behind 
it lay a large yard, at one side of which were the kitchen 
and other domestic offices. A picket fence divided the 
yard from a garden, and at the left of this were the stables 

313 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and pasture. Back of the garden a field lost itself in a 
wood of virgin growth. 

The house was a white cottage, a story-and-a-half high, 
fronted and backed by wide porches. A hall cut the lower 
floor in half, and ran from the entrance to the back door. 
On the left of the hall was a parlor of fair dimensions, with 
windows at the front and rear. "The chamber," of Hke 
shape and proportions, was on the other side. The 
dining-room was one wing, and "the study" another. 
Both connected directly with a deep portico which filled 
the intermediate space. Two bedrooms above stairs, and 
a store-room adjoining the dining-room, completed the tale 
of rooms. 

A modest establishment in very truth, but not con- 
temptible from the Old Virginia standpoint. Small as it 
was, we did not have it to ourselves until after Christmas. 
I esteemed this a fortunate circumstance from the first, 
considering how much I had to learn of housekeeping and 
parish work. Subsequently, I knew it for one of the signal 
blessings of a Mfe that has been affluent in goodness and 
mercy. 

For the occupants of the Parsonage, pending the com- 
pletion of a house of their own in building at the other 
end of the village, were Mr. and Mrs. Wirt Henry, a young 
married couple with one child. They had rented the cot- 
tage for the year ending January 1st, and kindly consented 
to receive us as boarders until the term had expired. 

From the moment that Wirt Henry came out to assist 
me to alight from the carriage that had brought us from 
the station, one mid-October day, to the end of his honored 
and useful hfe, his friendship for us knew no variableness 
nor shadow of turning. He was already my husband's 
staunch right hand in church and community. He took 
me upon trust for the time. I learned to love husband 
and wife long before we became separate households. 

314 



WILLIAM WIRT HENRY— HISTORIC SOIL 

To this day, his widow is to me as a sister. In the 
care-free three months of our happy companionship, ^Mrs. 
Henry helped me tactfully through the initial stages of 
acquaintanceship with parish and neighborhood. To the 
manor born, and connected by blood with two-thirds of 
the best families in the county, her gentle "coaching" was 
an inestimable benefit to the stranger within her gates. 

Her husband was a grandson of Patrick Henry, and a ^ 
lawj'er of note, although not yet thirty years of age. He 
attained eminence in his native county as time went on, 
and in Richmond, to which city he removed after the 
War. His Life and Letters of Patrick Henry is a standard 
biographical and historical classic; he filled with distinc- 
tion several public offices, among them that of President 
of the American Historical Society, and Delegate to the 
Historical Congress at The Hague, in 1897. 

In private life he was the best of husbands and fathers, 
sweet-hearted to the core, a thorough gentleman always 
and everywhere, and a genial and delightful comrade. 
When I turned study and pen in the direction of Colonial 
historical research, he was an invaluable auxiliary. I told 
him, over and over, that he was to me an exhaustless reser- 
voir of information, I had only to open a sluiceway, to 
draw in copious measure in my hour of need. As a faint 
expression of my sense of overwhelming obligation to him, 
I dedicated to him my first volume on Colonial Home- 
steads and Their Stories, published in 1896, 

I cannot say that my thirst for Colonial traditions and "S 
histories was created by my residence in Charlotte, From 
childhood I had been indefatigable in the pursuit of gene- 
alogical details and the tales of real life and happenings 
collected from the converse of my elders of the "fonner 
days," which they rated as better than these in defiance of 
Solomon's admonition. But it was not possible to live 
for three years, as I did, in a region where the very earth 

315 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

was soaked in historical associations; where every other 
name mentioned in my hearing was interwoven with re- 
citals of deeds of valor and of statesmanshipyperformed by 
the fathers of American history, and not be kindled into 
zealous prosecution of my favorite studies. 

The Court House, built in 1823, was designed by Thomas 
Jefferson. A more interesting building was a shabby, 
tumbledown house, not far from the site of the newer 
and better edifice. It was the "Court House" in the 
stirring days when the paternal Government would not 
squander money upon Colonial seats of justice. From the 
porch of this, Patrick Henry delivered his last speech to 
his adoring constituents. He was tottering upon the verge 
of the grave, into which he sank gently a few weeks later. 
A crisis of national and state importance had called him 
from his home at Red Hill, a dozen miles away. Keyed up 
by a sense of the imminence of the peril to the country he 
had saved, his magnificent will-power responded to the 
call ; the dying fire leaped high. He had never reasoned 
more cogently, never pleaded with more power than on 
that day. But as the last word fell from his lips, he sank 
fainting into the amis of his attendants. Dr. John Holt 
Rice stood on the outskirts of the crowd. As the dying 
lion fell in his tracks, the clergyman cried out: "The sun 
has set in all his glory!" 

From the same homely rostrum John Randolph (whose 
homestead of "Roanoke" is but a few miles from the 
county-seat) made his maiden speech, and addressed for 
the last time those of whom he declared — "No other 
man ever had such constituents." In this address he 
recounted the history of that relation, from the hour when 
the beardless boy had raised his reedy voice to confute 
the arguments of the people's idol — Patrick Henry — to 
the date of this, his resignation of his office. 

"Men of Charlotte!" The piercing voice that carried 

316 



JOHN RANDOLPH 

further in his weakness than more stentorian tones, sent 
the farewell to the outskirts of the breathless throng — 
"Forty years ago you confided this sacred trust to me. 
Take it back ! Take it back !" 

The gesture, as of rolling a ponderous weight from heart 
and arms, was never forgotten by those who saw it. With 
it he left the platform, mounted his horse without another 
word, and rode off to Roanoke. 

Mr. Jacob Michaux, of Powhatan County, was at that 
time a student in Hampden-Sidney College, and came over 
to Charlotte for the express purpose of hearing the famous 
orator. I had from his lips the description of the scene. 
John Randolph, as is well known, never used notes in 
speaking. It sent a sort of shudder, therefore, through the 
audience, when he took a folded paper from his pocket 
and opened it, saying: 

"The infirmities of advancing age, and the consequent 
failure of memory, have made it expedient that I should 
bring with me to-day a few notes to remind me of what I 
would say to you." 

He held the paper in his hand while speaking, and 
referred to it twice in the exordium. Warming to his 
work, he waved it aloft in his impassioned gesticulation, 
evidently forgetful of it and what was written on it. At 
last, it escaped from his fingers and fluttered down to Mr. 
Michaux's feet. The crowd, engrossed in the fervid oratory, 
did not notice what had happened. The student put his 
foot upon the bit of paper, without change of place or 
position. "It flashed across my mind that I would secure 
it when the speech was over, and keep it as a souvenir," he 
said. "The next moment I forgot it, and everything else 
except what the man before me was saying. It was a 
Vesuvian tide of eloquence, and carried thought, feeling, 
imagination along with it. One hears nothing Hke it in 
these degenerate days. I did not recollect the paper until 

317 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I was a mile away from the Court House, and the orator's 
voice began to die out of my ears." 

What a souvenir that would have been! I do not know 
that this anecdote has ever been pubHshed before. I had 
it, as I have said, directly from Mr. Michaux's lips, and 
vouch for the authenticity. 

Many of the stories that clung to the Parsonage had to 
do with the Orator of Roanoke. The house was at one time 
the home of Captain "Jack" Marshall, the father of the 
late Judge Hunter Marshall. The latter was, during our 
residence in Charlotte, a near neighbor and channing ac- 
quaintance. His father, ''Captain Jack," was one of the 
cronies whom John Randolph's eccentricities and fits of 
violent rage had not estranged. Politically, his constit- 
uents adored Randolph. Personally, they found him in- 
tolerable. Mrs. Eggleston, of whom I shall have more to 
say by-and-by, told me of visiting a playfellow in the 
Marshall home while John Randolph was staying with 
Captain Marshall. The two little girls were busy with 
their dolls in the lower hall, when a hand-bell was rung 
furiously above stairs. 

Little Lucy looked wonderingly at her companion. 

"Who is that? And what does it mean?" 

"Oh, it's Mr. Randolph trying to frighten away the 
devil. He has just got up, you see, and he says the devil 
creeps from under his bed as soon as he wakes up." 

The ringing continued at intervals for some minutes, 
and Lucy, terrified by the fancy that the fleeing demon 
might appear on the stairs, ran off home with the tale. 

"My mother had heard it often, before," said my friend, 
laughing at my horrified incredulity. "It was but one of 
his crazy antics. No-o-o!" doubtfully, as I put a question. 
"I don't beheve it was delirium tremens. He took opium 
at times. I don't know that he drank heavily. Every- 
body took his toddy in those days, you know. John Ran- 

318 



JOHN RANDOLPH 

dolph was queer, through and through, from the cradle to 
the grave, and hke no other man that ever hved! We 
children were terribly afraid of him." 

One of the numerous stories Mr. Henry told of the ec- 
centric was of his asldng a neighboring planter who was 
dining at Roanoke, if "he would not take a slice of cold 
meat upon a hot plate?" 

As ''Juba," Mr. Randolph's body-servant, was at the 
guest's elbow with the hot plate, the gentleman thought he 
was expected to say " Yes," and fearing to anger the choleric 
host, took the plate, accepting the offered cold meat. 
Whereupon, Randolph swore savagely at him for a "Hck- 
spittle," and a "coward." 

"You dare not speak up to me like a man!" he snarled. 
"I asked the question to see what you would say." 

He was as brutal to members of his own family. A 
clergyman, who studied divinity under Doctor Rice in Rich- 
mond, told me of a conversation between John Randolph 
and his sister-in-law, the widow of Richard Randolph. She 
was very fond of the Rices, spending weeks together at 
their home, and at last, dying while on one of these visits. 
Some months prior to her death, she joined the Presby- 
terian Church, and shortly after taking this step, had a call 
from her terrible brother-in-law. Regardless of the fact 
that two of the students were in the next room, and that 
what he shrieked in his piercing falsetto must be heard 
from the top of the house to the bottom, the irate Con- 
gressman berated Mrs. Judith Randolph in the coarsest 
terms for the disgrace she had brought upon an honorable 
name in uniting with "the Dissenters." 

He stayed not for any law, written or tacit, of respect due 
to host or hostess, reviUng both as scheming hypocrites 
and wolves in sheep's clothing, who had decoyed her into 
their "conventicle" in the hope of securing her fortune 
for themselves. 

319 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Yet, there is extant a letter which I have read, from 
John Randolph to Doctor Rice, written after his sister- 
in-law's death, extoUing her piety, thanking her late host 
for his great goodness to the sainted deceased, and winding 
up by saying that he had, all day, been possessed by the 
idea that he could see her spirit, "mild, loving, and be- 
nignant, hovering above him!" 

We must fall back upon Mrs. Eggleston's dictum — 
'^ Queer, through and through, from the cradle to the grave, 
and like no other man that ever lived!" 

Before quitting my gossip of the Randolphs, I must 
touch upon one of the most pitiful of the many tragedies 
that darken the history of the aristocratic clan. 

The Sunday after my arrival in my new home, I saw, 
from my seat in church, a late-comer stride up the aisle 
to one of the pews running at right angles with those filling 
the body of the building. The tardy worshipper was a man 
above the medium height, and erect as a Virginia pine. 
He walked Hke an Indian, as I observed at once, planting 
his feet straight forward, and rising on his toes with a lop- 
ing motion. His hair was snowy white, and hung down 
to the collar of his coat. When he took his seat, and 
faced the congregation, one saw that his eyes were dark 
and piercing; his eyebrows black; his features finely chis- 
elled. A full white beard added to his venerable appearance 
and accentuated the quaintness of the figure in a com- 
munity where shaven chins and upper lips were the rule. 

I had hardly noted these peculiarities when he bowed 
his head upon his hands, resting his elbows upon his knees, 
evidently in silent devotion, and remained thus for several 
minutes. The choir was singing the introductory anthem 
when he sat upright, and perceived the occupant of the 
pulpit. A brilliant smile irradiated the grave features; 
to my amazement he arose, ran up the steps of the sacred 
desk, and held out his hand to the preacher, the other hand 

320 



THE LAST OF THE RANDOLPHS 

upon his heart, and bowed deferentially. Mr. Terhune 
arose, with no sign of surprise or annoyance, and bowed 
silently over the locked hands. As nimbly as he had 
mounted the steps, the eccentric individual ran down and 
resumed his seat. Neither man had unclosed his lips, but 
the pantomime of welcome and acknowledgment was so 
significant that words would have been superfluous. The 
Unknown appeared to hearken devoutly to reading and 
to sermon, accompanying his listening by actions foreign 
to the behavior of latter-day church-goers. They were 
singularly expressive to me, whose eyes wandered to him 
covertly every few minutes. Nobody else paid any atten- 
tion to him. Now, his joined hands were raised almost to 
his chin, and the bowed head shaken over them, as in deep 
contrition — an attitude that recalled the "publican stand- 
ing afar off." Once he beat softly ui3on his breast. Again, 
he nodded approval of what he heard. Often he closed his 
eyes, and his lips moved in prayer. He was the foremost 
of the retiring congregation to leave the church after the 
benediction, passing down the aisle with the free, sweeping 
lope that had reminded me of an Indian. 

I had the story over our early Sunday dinner. When 
Mr. Henry finished it, I recalled that I had heard, when 
a mere child, my mother speak of meeting at Doctor Rice's, 
in her early girlhood, a nephew of John Randolph — St. 
George Randolph by name — who was deaf and dumb. 

"One of the handsomest young men I ever saw," she 
subjoined, "with flashing black eyes and dark, beautiful 
curls. He frightened me by offering to teach me the finger 
alphabet; but his manners were very pleasant, and he 
seemed gay, in spite of his affliction. He was educated in 
France, and had just come home when I saw him." 

Obedient memory, following this clue, unearthed a pass- 
age in Garnett's Life of John Randolph, which was part of 
my biographical library. In a letter to an old friend the 

321 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

uncle lamented that his nephew St. George had become 
insane. He had made several efforts to marry, and was 
unsuccessful — as he was given to understand — on account 
of his infirmity. 

Mr. Henry's narrative brought the biography down 
to date. The unhappy youth— sole heir to his father's 
and his uncle's wealth after the death of his younger 
brother, Tudor — was committed to an asylum for the 
insane. How long this man — born in the purple, highly 
educated, refined in taste, and elegant in bearing — was 
allowed to linger in the filthy inferno of the old-time "mad- 
house," I would not recollect if I could. Then the creak- 
ing wheel of his fortunes took an unexpected turn. By 
some legal manipulation I do not pretend to understand, 
Mr. Wyatt Cardwell, of Charlotte, the father of our grooms- 
man and travelling companion in the first stage of our 
wedding-journey, became the guardian of the almost for- 
gotten lunatic. A visit to his afflicted charge wrought so 
powerfully upon Mr. Cardwell's sympathies, that he left 
no stone unturned until the last of the direct line of Ran- 
dolphs was a free man, and domesticated in the home of 
his guardian. The remnants of his once fine library were 
placed at his disposal; he had his own riding-horse, and 
other luxuries — in short, all that he was able to enjoy. 
The Charlotte people respected his misfortunes, and treated 
him kindly whenever occasion offered. He read, and ap- 
parently enjoyed books, reading French, Latin, and Eng- 
lish at pleasure. His reminiscences of his distinguished 
uncle, and the politics of his unquiet day, were distinct, 
and to those who communicated with him by signs or by 
writing, extremely entertaining. 

His fellow-citizens came to have a pride in the relic of 
the heroic age. His shrewd comments upon men he had 
known in his prime, and the acquaintances of to-day, were 
repeated as hon mots. 

322 



THE LAST OF THE RANDOLPHS 

Sane, he would never be. The splendid intellect, that 
should have surmounted the frightful disabihty imposed 
at birth, was hopelessly shattered. But he was a local 
celebrity, about whom clung a glamour of romantic im- 
portance. 

I entered fully into this feeling within three weeks after 
I had my earhest glimpse of him. 

The Rev. Mr. , from another county, who had filled 

the pulpit of the Village Church more frequently in past 
years than was quite agreeable to the congregation, chanced 
to spend the Sunday in the neighborhood, and was invited 
to preach. He arose to announce the opening hymn just 
as St. George Randolph lifted his head from his private 
devotions. The expression of ineffable disgust, when he 
discovered who was to officiate that forenoon, was un- 
mistaliable and indescribable. Then he deliberately went 
through the pantomime of sharpening a pencil, a forefinger 
doing duty as the pencil, three fingers of the right hand 
holding an imaginary pen-knife. The sharpening done, 
he blew the imaginary refuse into the air with a disdainful 
puff. We all witnessed the operation, and the dullest 
could not miss the meaning. More than one was unable 
to join in the song of praise selected by the only man who 
was unconscious of the by-play. In the forty-five years 
of his active pastorate, my husband but twice violated 
pulpit and pew proprieties so far as to exchange meaning 
and amused glances with me. That was one of the times. 
As for Wirt Henry, nothing but an agonized ray from his 
wife's eye kept him from disgracing himself. 

Having testified to the nature and sincerity of his senti- 
ments with respect to the obnoxious interloper, as he 
considered him, our local wit turned a cold shoulder tow- 
ard the pulpit and buried himself in the pages of a smaU, 
much-worn volume he drew from his pocket, never vouch- 
safing another glance at desk or occupant during the service. 

22 323 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The little book was a collection of devotional readings 
he carried with him everywhere. His mother had given 
it to him when he went abroad. From her, too, he had 
learned to kneel by his bed each night and pray, as he 
had done at her knee in infancy. He never remitted the 
habit. I used to wonder, with a hard heartache, if he kept 
it up during that dark, dreadful age in the asylum. 

Less than three years after my first sight of him, the 
deaf, dumb and lunatic heir of the vast Randolph estate 
joined the mother he had not forgotten, nor ceased to love 
and venerate in the long night that had no star of hope, 
and which was to know no dawning this side of heaven. 



XXXIII 

PLANTATION PREACHING — COLORED COMMUNICANTS — 

A "mighty man in prayer" 

In the group of midland counties that embraced Char- 
lotte, Prince Edward and Halifax — names that fell into 
line, as by natural gravitation, in the thought and speech of 
the "Old Virginian" — the Presbyterian was the leading 
denomination. Rice, Lacy, Hoge, Alexander, and Speece 
had left their mark upon preceding generations, and a 
fragrant memory — as of mountains of myrrh and hills 
of frankincense — through all the Southern Church. 

Five out of seven of the leading planters in the region 
were Presbyterians. The others were, almost without ex- 
ception, Episcopahans, and the two denominations affili- 
ated more cordially than with Baptists, Methodists, and the 
sparse sprinkhng of CampbeUites, or "Christians," as they 
preferred to call their sect. 

Slavery existed in Virginia in its mildest possible form, 
and nowhere was the master's rule more paternal than in 
the group of counties I have named. The negroes were 
permitted to hold their own prayer-meetings in their cabins 
whenever it pleased them; they attended rehgious services 
as regularly as their owners, and, in a majority of the old 
families, were called in to family worship with the children 
of the household. No more convincing proof of their 
religious freedom could be desired than the fact that the 
bulk of the colored population belonged to the Baptist 
Church. Why, I could never make out. The Methodists 

325 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

would seem likely to attract them with equal force, their 
methods appealing to the emotional, excitable natures of 
the semi-tropical race as strongly as those of the denomina- 
tion that found favor in their sight. Yet, when one of our 
servants "got through" the spiritual conflicts that ushered 
in a state of grace, we expected him, or her, to join the 
Baptist Church as confidently as we looked for the child 
of the Covenant, "ordered in all things and sure," to con- 
firm, when it arrived at "the age of discretion," the vows 
taken by parents and sponsors in baptism. 

It was not singular, therefore, that the new pastor of the 
Village Church at Charlotte Court-House should find, at 
his installation in his cure of souls, the name of but one 
colored person upon the roll of communicants. We never 
spoke of them as "negroes" in that benighted age. 

"Uncle Caesar," the trusted "headman" upon the plan- 
tation of Colonel Marshall — Mrs. Henry's father — had once 
partaken of the Lord's Supper in the church in which his 
master was an elder. Which violation of the laws of his 
denomination, being duly reported, was the occasion of 
a case of disciphne long talked of throughout the colored 
community. The recusant was sharply reprimanded, and 
notified that a second offence would be punished by ex- 
communication. The doughty old servitor thereupon de- 
clared that, as he hoped to sit down to the supper of the 
Lamb in heaven with his master, so he would continue 
to do on earth, when the Lord's table was spread in the 
Village Church. An example was made of him for the 
edification of others, and Caesar became a Presbyterian, 
taking his seat among the communicants gathered in the 
main body of the church, whenever a Communion season 
came around. 

With a broad catholicity of spirit that appears, in per- 
spective, incompatible with the narrowness of creeds and 
ordinances prevalent, even among the educated Christians 

326 



PLANTATION PREACHING 

of that time, the ''plantation preachings" held regularly 
during the summer at various homesteads in those parts 
of the county near the churches, were attended by the 
colored population in large numbers, irrespective of the 
sect to which the officiating minister might belong. It was 
an established custom in the Village Church that the second 
Sunday service should be, in summer, at the house of some 
neighboring planter, and held for the colored people, in 
particular. That the whites, within a radius of five or six 
miles, drove over for the afternoon service, did not alter 
the expressed purpose of the meeting, or the manner of 
conducting it. 

Autumn was tardy in approach that year, and so it fell 
out that notice was given on the second Sunday morning 
after my arrival at my new abode, of "a plantation preach- 
ing to be held, at three o'clock, at the residence of Mr. 
Richard I. Gaines, to which all are cordially invited." 

We had an early dinner in consequence of the service. 
Over the dessert — the servants having been excused, that 
they might get ready for the "preaching" — we talked 
more freely of their ideas and mode of worship, than would 
have been kind in their presence. Among other anecdotes 
I related one I had had from Ned Rhodes last simimer, 
when he had, as he reported, been " blackburying " on Sun- 
day afternoon. 

The cemetery of the colored people was then, as now, 
situated upon high, rising ground, overlooking the ravine 
separating Shockoe Hill from the adjacent country. Mr. 
Rhodes and a friend, in the course of a Sunday afternoon 
walk, were drawn to the spot by the sight of a great crowd 
of negroes and a string of mourning coaches. 

When the two young men were near enough to the 
concourse to hear what was going on, they were espied by 
the orator of the day, who instantly soared into what his 
ilk admired as "dictionary English." Upon the heap of 

327 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

red clay beside the grave was a tiny coffin. The new- 
comers agreed, in telUng the story, that they had never 
beheld a smaller, and that the size of the pitiful little 
casket, wrapped with flowers, by contrast with the number 
of attendants upon the pompous service, set the stamp 
of absurdity upon the whole performance before they 
caught what the man was saying. 

That this was in keeping with the rest, they speedily 
perceived. In hortatory tones that thundered to the re- 
motest auditor, he dilated upon the uncertainty of life : 

"... Even de distinguished hves of de two 'lustr'ous 
strangers what has honored us by comin' among us dis 
blessed arternoon, to jine in our mo'nin'. What is they? 
And what is we? And what is any man, bo'n o' woman, my 
brethren? Up ter-day wid de hoppergrass, and down ter- 
morrow wid de sparrergrass ! Like de flower ob de corn- 
fiel', so he spreads hisself, like a tree planted by de horse- 
branch. Den de win' rises and de tempes' blows, an' beats 
upon dat man — and whar is he? An' he shan' know dat 
place o' his'n, no mo'." 

Pausing in mid-career, he touched the pathetically ridicu- 
lous box with a disdainful foot. 

"As fur dis t'ing!" rising on his toes in the energy of 
his contempt — "as fur dis 'ere itum — put de t'ing in de 
groun'! It's too small fer to be argyin' over!" 

Mr. Henry followed with a story of a darky, who prayed 
that "we might grow up befo' de Lord, like calves and 
beeves of de stall, and be made meat for de kingdom o' 
heaven." 

Mrs. Henry had a tale of a man who prayed at a plan- 
tation-meeting at Woodfork — Dr. Joel Watkins's home- 
stead — that Rev. John Rice, Mr. Terhune's immediate 
predecessor and a nephew of "Aunt Rice's" husband — 
"might soon cease from his labors, and his works, may 
dey foUer him!" 

328 



A "MIGHTY MAN IN PRAYER" 

"After which performance," she continued, "my uncle — 
his master — had a private interview with him, and forbade 
him ever to pray in pubUc again." 

Then I heard that, within the two years' incum- 
bency of the present pastor, ten colored members had been 
added to the Village Church, much to the satisfaction of 
their owners. Among them, one Dabney and his brother 
Chesley, or Chelsea (I am not sure which), were prominent 
in all good words and works. Both could read and write, 
and both were skilled carpenters, who had hired their time 
from their master, and were working at their trade for them- 
selves — respectable citizens in all but the right of franchise. 
The pastor spoke seriously and gratefully of their influence 
for good among their fellows, and of liis hopes for the 
class they represented. 

"Dabney is especially gifted in prayer," commented 
Mr. Henry, gravely. 

I did not then comprehend why his eyes twinkled, and 
why the others laughed, I was to know before the day 
was done. 

The Gaines homestead was a fine old brick building, 
fronted by a broad veranda (we said "porch" then, in true 
Enghsh fashion). A spacious lawn stretched between the 
house and the gate. Under the trees shading the turf were 
ranged long rows of benches, occupied, that Sunday after- 
noon, by men and women from the Gaines plantation 
and from other freeholdings for miles around. There may 
have been four hundred, all told. A healthier, happier peas- 
ant class could not be found on either side of the ocean. 
All were clean ; all were well-dressed. The younger women 
were gay with the discarded finery which was the per- 
quisite of house-servants, ladies' maids in particular. 

The porch and the windows of the drawing-room were 
filled with guests of fairer complexion, but in demeanor and 
general behavior not a whit more quietly reverent. The 

329 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

brief invocation, the reading of the Scriptures, and the 
sermon were the duty of the presiding clergyman. He 
stood at the head of the short flight of steps, facing the 
dusky throng, and paying no more heed to the small 
audience behind him than if it had not been. It was the 
"colored people's" service. In the selection of hymns the 
leader was guided by his knowledge of what would be 
famihar to them. The first went with a swing and a rush, 
that shook the branches above the singers' heads, and 
brought down slow showers of tinted leaves upon the 
grass. 

It was a perfect afternoon. The fields were golden brown ; 
no frost had fallen to blacken or bleach them. Hickories 
were canopies of warm amber; oaks were reddening, and 
the maples were aglow with autumnal fires. The still air 
was nutty sweet. 

The prayer, immediately preceding the sermon, was of- 
fered by an aged farm-hand, upon whom the leader called 
to conduct our devotions. His hair was pale chinchilla; 
his back was bent, and his thin voice quavered sadly. All 
the same, he voiced the petitions of every heart for strength, 
wisdom, and righteousness, briefly and pertinently. The 
sermon over, Dabney was bidden to "lead us in prayer." 

I was more than curious to hear the "gifted" brother. 
I had, on the drive out from the village, illustrations of his 
practice of introducing pointed personalities into extem- 
pore blending of suppHcation, confession, and adoration. 
How, the year before, when the smallpox appeared in the 
lower end of the village. Doctor Flournoy, a leading physi- 
cian in the county, undertook the charge of the few cases of 
the dreaded disease, quarantining himself from the homes 
of other patients and acquaintances. In the cold weather, 
the second service of the Sabbath was still for the negroes. 
But they occupied the lower part of the church, and the 
whites sat in the gallery, reversing the order of the morning 

330 



A "MIGHTY MAN IN PRAYER" 

services. There were few in the gallery when Doctor Flour- 
noy, peeping in at the door, thought it safe to sUp into a 
seat in the choir-loft, which was quite empty. 

Dabney's falcon eye had descried him, and when he 
arose to pray he "improved" the incident: 

"0 Lord! we beseech Thee to bless and take care of 
the good doctor who has crojje into the gallery up yonder, 
'cause why, he's afeerd he may carry smallpox in his clo'es 
to some of us. Be a sliield about that good man whose 
heart so faints for the courts of the Lord that he jes' can't 
keep away. See to it, O Shepherd of Tliine Isrul ! that he 
don't ketch the smallpox himself!" 

With all this, I was so far unprepared for what was to 
follow the uprising of the tall figure from the ranks of the 
believers, collected in the heart of the congregation, that I 
shrank back, out of sight of those who might have their 
eyes open and focussed upon me, in my seat just within 
a front window. 

For thus held forth the man mighty in prayer, when he 
had disposed comfortably of the world at large and the 
brotherhood of saints in especial: 

"0 Lord! have mercy upon the hardened and hell- 
defying, hell-desarvin' sinners, in these 'ere low-groun's of 
sin an' sorrow, 'roun' about Charlotte Coate-House, from 
the rivers to the ends of the yearth. 

"Bring 'em to mou'n as one mou'ns fer his first-born, 
and come a flockin' into the kingdom, as doves to their 
windows, from the rivers to the ends of the yearth. 

"Bless the master an' mistis of this home, an' pour out 
on 'em the riches of the heavens above, and the earth be- 
neath, and the waters under the earth, from the rivers to 
the ends of the yearth. 

"0 Lord! in the plentifulness of Thy mercy, bless with 
all manner of mercies the great and notable man of God, 
whom Thou hast placed over us in speritual things. Bless 

331 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

him in his rising up, and goin' about, and among the 
sheep of his parstur', from the rivers to the ends of the 
yearth. 

"Bless her who Thou hast given to him to be a pardner 
in the Ian' what flows wid milk an' honey, an' in de was' 
and desolate po'tions, whar no water is, from the rivers to 
the ends of the yearth. 

"May they two live together for many a long year, hke 
two turtle-doves in one nes', with nary a jar between, from 
the rivers to the ends of the yearth!" 

"A powerful figure — that of the family jars!" said my 
companion, when we had had our confidential laugh out, 
driving homeward between the hedgerows of the planta- 
tion-road and the cool depths of forest-lands. "And the 
only one he did not borrow from the Bible. He knows 
but one book." 



XXXIV 

MY NOVITIATE AS A PRACTICAL HOUSEWIFE — MY COOK 
"gets her hand out" — INCEPTION OF "COMMON SENSE 
IN THE household" 

Fifty years after it was written, I found among some 
family papers a letter from my husband to his father, 
dated "February 20, 1857." His description of the cot- 
tage home in which we were now installed, as master and 
mistress, reads like a pastoral. He was not addicted to 
sentimental rhapsodies. If this were ever his style, he 
would have curbed the disposition to effervesce, in writing 
to another man. But the tone of the whole epistle is that 
of one thoroughly content with his home and the manage- 
ment thereof. 

One sentence brought deep gratification to me, blended 
oddly with amusement and a tinge of melancholy: 

"Virginia is very well and very busy. I confess to some 
surprise at her skill in housewifery. She seems as much at 
home in the kitchen as in the drawing-room, to which she is 
summoned many times a day to receive visitors." 

Until I read that letter, I had not meant to devote so 
much as a page — much less a chapter — to the crucial ex- 
periences of that novitiate in domestic lore. Now, I feel 
it incumbent upon me, as a duty I owe to the country- 
women I have tried to help along these lines, for forty-odd 
years, to lift the veil from the homely, ill-appointed kitchen 
in which I successfully deluded a quick-eyed, quick-witted 
man into believing I was mistress of the situation. 

333 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

In my father's house I was considered to have a turn, 
if not a talent, for housewifery. From childhood it was 
my dehght to haunt the laundry, where the finer branches 
of cookery were carried on when the washing was out of 
the way. My mother was a very Mrs. Rundle in the ex- 
cellence of her preserves and pickles. Mary Anne, the 
comely Indo-mulatto, was proficient in the composition of 
cakes, jellies, and pastries, syllabubs and creams. She 
liked to have me "help" her, as she put it. That is, I 
whipped eggs and beat butter and pounded spices, peeled 
fruit, topped and tailed gooseberries, when I felt like it, 
and kept her amused with my chatter. 

At ten, I was trusted to carry the key-basket and to 
"give out" ingredients required for the day's cooking and 
serving. At fourteen, I believed myself to be a clever 
cake-maker, and at sixteen, proudly assumed the respon- 
sibility of putting up preserves and pickles for the winter's 
consumption, one summer, when my mother's health obliged 
her to leave town in the height of the fruit season. When 
she came home, the stern old granddame, with whom I 
was rather a favorite (if she ever indulged her buckram- 
clad spirit in the weakness of having a favorite), informed 
her gentle daughter-in-law that "Mary" — as she persisted 
in calling me — "had kept the house so well that we had 
hardly missed her mother." 

It was not strange, therefore, that I took the helm of 
my newly launched barque with faint and few misgivings 
as to my ability to navigate the unknown seas that looked 
calm and bright from the shore. 

Ours was a prosperous country parish, and liberal hos- 
pitality was the law of daily living. The Henrys vacated 
the Parsonage a few days before Christmas, and I went 
down to Richmond for a fortnight, to complete the house- 
hold plenishing we had begun during the honeymoon. My 
sisters-in-law — with whom I was ever upon cordial terms — 

334 



MY NOVITIATE AS A HOUSEWIFE 

had lent advice and co-operation in the selection of furni- 
ture at the North. My carpets were bought in New Bruns- 
wick, New Jersey, where Judge Terhune was an old and 
honored resident. My mother had seen to the outfit of 
household linen. I smile now, in recollecting how care- 
free was my mood through that happy Christmas fortnight, 
after the receipt of a letter from the member of the firm 
who abode by the stuff for ten days of my holiday, ap- 
prised me of the arrival of the furniture from New Bruns- 
wick and from Richmond, likewise, that "Mrs. Eggleston 
and Mrs. Henry, with some other ladies, kindly insist upon 
having the house cleaned, the carpets made and put down, 
and the furniture settled in place while you are away." 

The proceedings would astound me now that I know 
more of humankind, and of parishes. Still more extraor- 
dinary would I consider the cool, matter-of-course way in 
which I received the intelligence. It was the Old Virginia 
atmosphere in that long-dead-and-buried time. 

I did open my eyes, and break into ecstatic gratitude, 
when, on taking formal possession of our real home, where 
we had expected to live in picnic fashion upon the pro- 
visions we had laid away in baskets and trunks before 
leaving Richmond, we beheld the table set in the dining- 
room for supper, and fires alight in every room. Further 
search revealed that the. house was in perfect order, the 
curtains hung, carpets down, and the larder stocked to 
overflowing with staples and dehcacies. The cook and 
chambermaid hired for the year — as was the invariable 
custom of the "system" — were on hand, and John, the 
man-of-all-work, had met us at the station. Not another 
human creature was visible. For any evidence furnished 
to the contrary, by sight or hearing, the "surprise" might 
have been the work of benevolent pixies. My sister Alice 
— a girl of fourteen — would be an inmate of our house for 
most of the time, and study with us as heretofore. She 

335 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and I ran about the house like two madcaps, after supper and 
until bedtime, calling out excitedly at each fresh discovery. 

Two barrels of flour and one of corn-meal; two of apples 
and one of potatoes; a half-barrel of sugar, and other staple 
groceries, in divers measures, made the foundation of the 
abundant supply for creature wants. The upper shelves 
of the store-room were crowded with pickles, preserves, 
and all manner of conserved fruits for which the Virginia 
housewife was justly famed. Truly, the Hues had fallen 
to us in pleasant places. 

Excitement was renewed next morning by the appear- 
ance at the outer gate, and streaming down the walk, of a 
procession of colored men and women, each laden with 
basket, or pail, or tray, or parcel. The women bore their 
burdens on their heads, the men upon shoulders or in their 
arms. All, like the Greeks of old, came bearing gifts, and 
of a more perishable nature than those that loaded pantry 
and store-room shelves. Honey, breads of all shapes and 
characters; cakes, butter, and eggs; chickens, dressed for 
the table; sausage, spareribs, hams, and shoulders; a roast 
of beef; custards and puddings and mince-pies — seemed 
designed to victual a garrison rather than a family of 
three whites and three servants. To crown the pro- 
fusion and add to the variety, the elegant young lawyer, 
Mr. Cardwell, who had figured in our bridal train, drove up 
through the main street, in at our front gate, and down 
to the Parsonage door, a cow and calf, to the unbounded 
delight of the village urchins who flocked at his heels up 
to the gate. The cow, "Old Blue," as she was dubbed, 
because her color could not be more accurately described, 
gave the richest milk I ever skimmed. I would let no one 
else take care of it after one week's experience had taught 
me the necessity of giving my personal attention to each 
department of housewifery, if I would not be cheated at 
every conceivable opportunity. 

336 



MY NOVITIATE AS A HOUSEWIFE 

Thus gayly began my training in a school from which 
I have not yet been graduated. 

My mother was a good housekeeper, and the wheels of 
her machine ran in smooth ruts. She had old and com- 
petent servants. I doubt if she had ever swept a room, 
or roasted a piece of meat, in her hfe. The cook we had 
hired from a neighboring planter had excellent recom- 
mendations. True, she had been one of the superfluous 
"hands" who were hired out from year's end to year's end, 
and such were not warranted as first-class workers. They 
were prone to become shiftless and indifferent to their 
work, by reason of frequent changes. Still, Emily was re- 
puted to be a fair cook and laundress. Among the cuts of 
fresh meat sent in by the friends, whose consistent gen- 
erosity moved me to the invention of the phrase "kitchenly- 
kindness," was a noble beefsteak. I ordered it to be 
cooked for breakfast the second day of our incumbency. 

Emily fried it brown — almost to a crisp ! 

Five cook-books were in my just-unpacked library. 
Breakfast over, I sought out Miss Leslie's Complete Cook- 
Book, and read up on beefsteak. 

Two more were sent in that day from country parish- 
ioners. Next morning, I hied me surreptitiously to the 
kitchen before my husband or sister was awake. I bore 
the steak upon a charger — alias, a crockery platter. It 
had been under lock and key until then; otherwise, its 
fair proportions would inevitably have been shorn. The 
honesty of the hired hand was an axiomatic negligible 
quantity; and the most faithful of family servants sel- 
dom resisted successfully the temptation to appropriate 
to their own use an unlawful share of eatables. They were 
a gluttonous race, and the tenet that ''taking from marster 
wasn't stealing," stood high in their creed. 

I had told Emily overnight that I would show her how a 
steak should be cooked, and she was more than ready for me. 

337 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I had never touched a bit of raw meat before, and the 
clamminess of the gory cut sent ''creeps" all over me. 
It was very bloody to my eyes, and I washed it well in cold 
water preparatory to laying it upon the broad bottom of 
the frying-pan, heated and buttered, which, I had learned 
from another of the five manuals, was "a passable sub- 
stitute for a gridiron if the young housekeeper had failed 
to provide herself with this important utensil." Emily 
had not found a gridiron in the box of kitchen utensils 
unpacked before my arrival, and there was no time to 
look it up. The steak, dripping wet, went into the broad 
pan set over a bed of red coals. We cooked with wood in 
Old Virginia. It hissed and spluttered and steamed hke 
the escape-valve of a balky locomotive. Miss Leslie said, 
"Turn it at the end of eight minutes." The sodden pallor 
of the exposed side did not look right to me, somehow. 

*'0h!" quoth Emily, "you is gwine to stew it— is you?" 

Pass we quickly over the abhorrent tale! The steak 
never attained unto the "rich brown" which, according 
to my cook-book makers, it should display when ready for 
table. I turned it four times, and, with a vague idea that 
butter browned more readily than meat, I added a great 
spoonful to the juices oozing from the steak. There was a 
great deal of gravy in the dish when it was served, and my 
companions pronounced it "extremely savory." 

"But you should not have gone out into the kitchen," 
demurred my husband. "Does not the cook understand 
her business?" 

"Few of her class can do without teaching," I rejoined, 
valiantly. 

I had already made a resolve from which I never swerved : 
If my cook did not understand her business, and I under- 
stood it even less, I would not confess it. As time went 
on, I was to feel such test of the heroic resolve as I had never 
anticipated. For, as the knowledge of Emily's ineptitude 

338 



MY NOVITIATE AS A HOUSEWIFE 

grew upon me, the conviction of my own crass and com- 
prehensive ignorance waxed into a hamiting horror. I was 
as unlearned as the babe unborn in everything that a 
practical housekeeper should know. I could not make a 
batch of bread, or boil a potato, or broil a chop, had my 
eternal welfare — or my husband's happiness — depended 
upon it. As for soup-making, roasting, stewing, and boil- 
ing meats, frying and baking fish — the very commonest 
and coarsest rudiments of the lore in which I was supposed 
to be proficient— I was as idiotically void of comprehension 
as if I had never heard of a kitchen. How I maintained a 
brazen show of competency is a mystery to me at this 
distance from that awful trial-period. I studied my 
quintette of cook-books with agonized earnestness. And 
when I was tolerably positive that I had mastered a recipe, 
I "went and did it" with Squeersian philosophy. How 
many failures were buried out of the sight of those who 
loved me best, and were most constantly with me, would 
have shocked the frugal housewife into hysterics. My 
mastery of this and of that process was painfully slow, but 
it began to tell upon our daily fare. I got out the gridiron, 
and learned to cook to perfection the steaks my husband's 
soul loved, and from my nonpareil of neighbors, Mrs. 
Eggleston, I got a recipe for quick biscuits. 

To the acquisition of that particular formula, and the con- 
versation that embedded the gift, I attribute a large meas- 
ure of the success which eventually rewarded the striving 
unto blood, that was my secret martyrdom for half a year. 

She was a "capable" housewife, according to Mrs. 
Stowe's characterization of the guild. She was, more- 
over, warm-hearted, sensible, and sympathetically remi- 
niscent of her own early struggles with the housekeeping 
problem. When I took her into confidence as to my dis- 
trust of my quintette of manuals, she laughed out so cheer- 
ily that I felt the fog lift from my spirits. 
23 339 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

"All written by old maids, or by women who never kept 
house," she declared. ''To my certain knowledge. Miss 
Leslie has boarded in a Philadelphia hotel for twenty 
years. I wouldn't give a guinea a gross for their books. 
Make your own! / do! When I get a tiptop, practical 
recipe — one that I have tried for myself and proved, I 
write it down in my own every-day language; then I have 
met that enemy, and it is mine!" 

We were in her house, and she brought out the manu- 
script book in which her victories were recorded. Next, 
she offered to lend it to me, 

"I don't think," she subjoined, tactfully, "that old- 
fashioned housekeepers, like your mother and mine — yes, 
and my mother-in-law — take the Hvely interest in learning 
new ways of doing things that we do. I am very proud of 
some discoveries and a few inventions that I have written 
down there. Those quick biscuits, for instance, are my 
resource when the bread doesn't turn out just right. They 
never fail. And speaking of bread, here is a sort of short- 
cut to excellence in that direction. That is my composition, 
too. Take the book with you, and copy anything you fancy." 

"Bread is Emily's strong point," I remarked, compla- 
cently, in accepting the loan. "Nevertheless, I shall try 
your composition." 

The promise was fulfilled in a way I had not expected. 
I had been keeping house now about four months, and 
was beginning to justify, in some degree, the fond boast of 
the son to the father of my familiarity with kitchen-craft, 
when Emily announced one morning, as I was "giving 
out" for the day: 

"Tain' no use measurin' out dat ar' flour, Miss Vir- 
ginny!" (The old-time servant never said "Mrs." to, or 
of anybody.) "I done got my han' out makin' bread! 
I'd jes' spile yer flour an' things ef I was to try to make 
a batch o' bread." 

340 



MY COOK "GETS HER HAND OUT" 

"What is the matter with your hands?" I looked at 
the membei-s, brown and brawny, and apparently un- 
injured. 

She spread them out as a bat might his wings, and re- 
garded them in affectionate commiseration. 

"As I tole you, I done got my han' out for makin' bread. 
Nobody don' know how-come a body's han' gits out for 
somethin' or 'nother. Sometimes, it's fur bread, an' then 
agin it's fur cake, or maybe cookin' chickens, or the likes 
o' that. Thar's some as thinks it's a sort of bewitched, 
or conjurin'. Some says as how it's the ole Satan what 
takes his spite on us that 'ar way. I don't know nothin' 
bout how that may be. I jes' know that my han' done 
got out for makin' bread. I been done feel it soon's I got 
out o' bade this mornin'." 

"And may I ask," I interrupted, in freezing politeness 
that was utterly wasted, "how long your hand is hkely to 
stay out?" 

She shook her head, sadly, imperturbably, 

" Nobody can' never say how long, Miss Virginny. May- 
be six days, and maybe two mont's. Sis' Phoebe" (fellow 
church-members were always "Brother" and "Sister" even 
in e very-day speech), "what b'long to Mars' Wyatt Card- 
well, she got her han' out for two or three t'ings at oncet 
las' year, an' sho's you're born an' I'm standin' here in 
this yere blessed sto'-room, she ain't got it in agin fur 
better'n six mont. I's certainly mighty sorry fur you an' 
Mars' Ed'ard, but the Lord's will is jes' p'intedly got to 
be done." 

Constant to my vow of discretion in all things pertain- 
ing to domestic tribulations, I said never a word to the 
other members of the smitten household of what menaced 
them. The congestion was the more serious, inasmuch as 
there was not a baker \vithin twenty miles, and we baked 
fresh bread and rolls every day. I was in poor physical 

341 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

case for culinary enterprise, for one of the constitutional 
headaches which I had inherited from both parents had 
warned me of its approach; I ought to keep quiet and dis- 
courage the advance. Instead of which, I girded up the 
loins of my spirit and concluded that there could hardly 
be a more propitious opportunity for trying Mrs. Eggle- 
ston's bread recipe. Since a knowledge of practical bread- 
making was one of Mfe's stringent necessities in this lati- 
tude, "better sune than syne." 

I set the sponge at noon, in pursuance of directions laid 
down so explicitly that a novice with a headache that was 
by now a fixed fact, could not err therein. I could not 
sit up to supper for the blinding pain. Alice was taking 
that meal, and was to spend the evening with a friend, 
and my husband had a business call in his study. No one 
would be privy to the appeal I meditated making to my 
tyrant. I sent for her, and ordered her to bring to my 
room the sponge I had left in a secluded corner of the 
dining-room. When it came, I bade her bring kneading- 
tray and flour. These set in order on the table, I called 
her attention to the hopeful and enticing foaming condi- 
tion of the sponge, and assured her that no evil could befall 
the dough if she were to knead in the flour and prepare 
the mass for the night's working, there under my eyes. 

She planted herself in the middle of the floor and sur- 
veyed me mournfully — a sphinx done in chocolate. 

"I suttinly is mighty sorry for you, Miss Virginny, an' 
I'd do anyt'ing what I could do fur to help you out o' 
you' trouble. But thar ain't no manner o' use in my layin' 
my han' to that ar' dough. It wouldn't never rise, not 
'tell the jedgment-day. It would be temptin' Provi- 
dence, out and out. When a body's han' is out, it's out 
for good and all! I done do my best to make you onder- 
stan' what's happen' to me, an' angels couldn't do no 

mo'! Lord 'a' mercy! what is you goin' to do?" 

342 



"COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD" 

I had jumped up and belted in my dressing-gown, 
rushed to the wash-stand, and washed my hands furiously. 
Without a syllable I tackled the sponge, measured and 
worked in the flour, and fell to kneading it in a blind 
rage. Pretty soon my strength flagged; the pain in 
my temples and back of the eyes beat me faint. To 
get a better purchase on the stiffened mass, I set the tray 
down on the floor and knelt over it. That bread had to 
be made if I perished in the attempt. 

The chocolate-colored sphinx surveyed me sorrowfully, 
without stirring an inch from her place on the hearth-rug. 

Neither of us heard the door open, softly and cautiously, 
lest the noise might disturb my slumbers. Both of us 
started violently at the voice that said: 

"What is the meaning of this?" 

I sat up on my knees and faced the speaker, essaying a 
miserable imitation of a laugh. 

"Emily has got her hand out in bread-making, and I 
am trying mine. This is almost ready now." 

He walked across the floor and lifted me to my feet; 
laid me incontinently upon the lounge, and confronted the 
cook. 

"Take up that tray!" She obeyed dumbly. "Carry 
it out into the kitchen and finish the bread. Yes! I 
mean it! Get your hand in before you are a minute older, 
or I'll know the reason why. And if the bread is not good, 
I shall send you back to your master to-morrow morning, 
and tell him I have no further use for you." 

He would have cut his hand off before he would have 
struck a woman, and the creature knew it as well as I did, 
but she cowered before the blue blaze of his eyes, as at a 
lightning flash. 

His call stayed her on the threshold. 

"Do you understand what I have said?" 

The sphinx crumbled: 

343 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

''Ya'as, suh!" 

"You understand, too, that your hand is not to get 
out again?" 

''Not ef I can holp it, Mars' Ed'ard!" 

"See that you do help it!" 

Then I held my head hard with both hands to keep the 
sutures from flying asunder, and laughed until I cried. 

From the stress and toils, the mortifications and bewil- 
derment of that year, grew into a settled purpose the long- 
ing to spare other women — as iU-equipped as I was, when I 
entered upon my housewifely career — the real anguish of my 
novitiate. The foundation of Common Sense in the House- 
hold was laid in the manuscript recipe -book begun at 
Mrs. Eggleston's instance. I had learned, to my bitter 
woe, that there was no printed manual that would take 
the tyro by the hand and show her a plain path between 
pitfalls and morasses. I learned, by degrees, to regard 
housewifery as a profession that dignifies her who follows 
it, and contributes, more than any other calling, to the 
mental, moral, and spiritual sanity of the himian race. I 
received my call to this ministry in that cottage parsonage. 

My departure from the beaten track of novel- writing, 
in which I had achieved a moderate degree of success, was 
in direct opposition to the advice of the friends to whom 
I mentioned the project. The publishers, in whose hands 
my first cook-book has reached the million mark, confessed 
frankly to me, after ten editions had sold in as many 
months, that they accepted the work solely in the hope that 
I might give them a novel at some subsequent period. 
Even my husband shook a doubtful head over the wild 
scheme. It was the only book published by me that had 
not his frank and hearty approval. Upheld by the rooted 
conviction that I had been made, through my own short- 
comings and battles, fit to supply what American women 
lacked and needed sorely, I never debated or doubted. 

344 



"COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD" 

My husband found me "gloating" over a copy of Com- 
mon Sense the week after it was published. 

"I verily beheve," he said, wonderingly, "that you 
take more pride in that book than in all the rest you have 
written." 

I answered, confidently, " It will do more good than all 
of them put together." 

This was fifteen years after Emily's hand got out, and 
I knelt on the carpet in my bedroom to knead my trial 
batch of bread. 



XXXV 

THE STIRRED "NEST AMONG THE OAKS" — A CRUCIAL CRISIS 

"Charlotte C. H., April 12th, 1857. 

"My still-remembered Friend, — It is a raw, cloudy Sun- 
day afternoon; Mr. Terhune is suffering somewhat from a cold, 
and is, moreover, fatigued by the labors of the day. I have 
persuaded him to take a siesta on the lounge. Even my birds 
are quiet under the drowsy influence of the weather, and only 
the fire and clock interrupt the stillness of my pleasant 
chamber. . . . 

"I have been on the point several times of writing to you 
(despite your broken promise of last September), begging you 
to visit us during the summer. Need I say how happy we 
should be to see you in our Home? 

"It is a sweet word to my ear, a sweet place to my heart, 
for a happier was never granted to mortals. I do not say 
this as a matter of course. You should know me too well 
than to suppose that. It comes up freely — joyously — from 
a brimming heart. My only fear is lest my cup should be too 
full, for what more could I ask at the hands of the Giver of 
mercies? 1 have a dear little home, furnished in accordance 
with my own taste; delightful society, and an abundance of 
it; perfect health, having scarcely seen a sick day since my 
marriage — and the best husband that lives upon the globe. . . . 

"This is a large and flourishing church, demanding much 
hard work on his part; but he is young and strong, and he 
loves his profession. We visit constantly together, and here 
end my out-of-door 'pastoral duties.' Within doors, my aim 
is to make home bright; to guard my husband from annoy- 
ance and intrusion during study-hours; to entertain him 
when he is weary, and to listen sympathizingly to all that 

346 



THE STIRRED "NEST AMONG THE OAKS" 

interests him. I shall never be a model 'minister's wife.' 
I knew that from the first, so I have never attempted to play 
the role. Fortunately, it is not expected, much less de- 
manded. 

"We shall make a flying visit to Richmond in May. After 
that, we shall be at home, off and on, certainly until Septem- 
ber. Our cottage parsonage — the 'little nest among the 
oaks,' as Alice calls it — is ever ready to receive you, and so 
are our hearts. 

"Were my other and very much better half awake, he 
would join me in love and good wishes, for I have taught him 
to know and to love you all." 

A year after my marriage, the friend of my childhood 
and the intimate correspondent of my girl-life, was mar- 
ried to Rev. WilHam Campbell, the pastor of "Mount 
Carmel," the pretty country church in which my forebears 
and contemporaries had worshipped for generations, the 
church for which my great-grandfather gave the land; in 
which he was the first ordained elder, and in which my 
beloved "Cousin Joe" ("Uncle Archie") had succeeded 
him in the same office. In Mount Carmel I had taken my 
first Communion, and here the new wife of the pastor was 
to be welcomed into full fellowship with her husband's flock 
in November. My husband was invited by Mr. Campbell 
to take the service on that day, and I was warmly pressed 
to accompany him. 

" Charlotte C. H., November 8th, 1857. 

"My own dear Friend, — A fact overlooked by Mr. Ter- 
hune and myself, occurred to me a little while ago — viz., that 
there is only a semi-weekly mail to Smithville. Therefore, 
to insure your reception of this in season at Montrose, it 
should go from this place to-morrow. It was Mr. Terhune's 
intention to drop a line to Mr. Campbell to-night; but I have 
begged that I might write to you instead. 

"I have many and bright hopes for you. Hopes, not 'as 
lovely as baseless,' but founded upon a knowledge of your 

347 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

character and that of him whom God has given you as your 
other and stronger self. When I rejoiced in your union, it 
was with sincere and full delight. You have a mate worthy 
of you — one whom you love, and who loves you. What more 
does the woman's heart crave? You have chosen wisely, and 
happiness, such as you have never known before, must follow. 

"Will you not come up and see us this winter? Nothing 
would give me more pleasure than to see you in our dear little 
home. 

"Mr. Terhune is very anxious that I should accompany him 
to Powhatan, but I dare not suffer my mind to dwell upon a 
project so charming. He cannot, all at once, get used to 
visiting without me, but in the crib, over in the corner, lies 
an insurmountal)le obstacle — tiny to view, but which may 
not be set aside. 

"I wish you could see my noble boy, who will be two months 
old to-morrow! He is very pretty, says the infallible 'Every- 
body.' To us, he is passing dear. Already he recognizes us 
and frolics by the half-hour with us, laughing and cooing — the 
sweetest music that ever sounded through our hearts and 
home. Nothing but the extreme inconvenience attendant 
upon travelling and visiting with so young a child, prevents 
me from accompanying the Reverend gentleman. . . . 

"I have no advice to give you except that you shall be 
yourself, instead of following the kind suggestions of any Mrs. 
Grundy who has an ideal pattern of the 'Minister's Wife' 
ready for you to copy. I am confident that you will be 
'helpmeet' for the man, and since he will ask no more, his 
parish has no right to do it. 

"My warm regards to Mr. Campbell. When I see him I 
will congratulate him. You would not deliver the messages 
I would send to him. ' Eddie' sends a kiss to 'Auntie Effie.'" 

In folding, almost reverently, the time-dyed letter and 
laying it beside the rest in the box at the bottom of which 
I found the sallowed "P.P.C." card, date of "September 
2, 1856," I feel as if I were shutting the door and turning 
the key upon that far-away time; bidding farewell to a 

348 



THE STIRRED "NEST AMONG THE OAKS" 

state of society that seems, by contrast with the complex 
interests of To-day, pastoral in simplicity. In reviewing 
the setting and scenes of my early history, I am reading a 
quaint chronicle, inhaling an atmosphere redolent of spices 
beloved of our granddames, and foreign to their descend- 
ants. 

It is not I who have told the story, but the girl from 
provinces that are no more on earth than if they had 
never been. The Spirit of that Past is the narrator. I 
sit with her by the open "chimney-piece," packed as far 
as arms can reach with blazing hickory logs; as she talks, 
the imagery of a yet older day comes to my tongue. We 
knew our Bibles " by heart " in both senses of the term, then, 
and believed in the spiritual symbohsm of that perfer\dd 
love-Canticle — the song of the Royal Preacher. I find my- 
self whispering certain musical phrases while the tale goes 
on, and the story-teller's face grows more rapt: 

"Thy lips drop as the honey-comb; honey and milk are 
under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like 
the smell of Lebanon; 

"Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates with pleas- 
ant fruits; camphire, with spikenard; 

"Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon." 

It is not a mystic love-chant, or a dreamy jargon, that 
I recite under my breath. The sadly few (more sad and 
few with each year) who recall with me the days that are 
no more — and forever — will feel what I cannot put into 
words. 

Soon after the dawn of the year 1858, we had news of 
the death of my husband's youngest sister, a bright, en- 
gaging matron, of whom I had grown very fond in my 
visits to her New Jersey home. The happy wife of a man 
who adored her, and the mother of a beautiful boy, she 
had but one unfulfilled wish on earth. When a baby-girl 

349 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

was put into her arms, she confessed this, and that now 
she could ask nothing more of heaven. The coveted gift 
cost her her Hfe. 

In March, my dearest friend, Mary Ragland, paid a long- 
promised visit to the "nest among the oaks." She had 
not been strong all winter. She was never robust. I 
brought her up from town, in joyous confidence that the 
climate that had kept me well and vigorous would brace 
her up to concert pitch. For a few weeks she seemed to 
justify that beUef. Then the languor and slow fever re- 
turned. She faded before our incredulous eyes as a flower 
droops on the stem. She had no pain, and so slight was 
the rise in temperature that made her thirsty by night, 
that we would not have detected it had she not mentioned 
casually at breakfast that she arose to get a drink of water, 
and chanced to see, through the window, a lunar rainbow. 
This led to the discovery that she always arose two or 
three times each night to quench her thirst. It was char- 
acteristic that she saw the rainbow, and was eager to re- 
port it next day. Beautiful things floated to her by some 
law of natural attraction. She, never took to her bed. To 
the last, she averred, laughingly, that she was "only lazy 
and languid." She "would be all right very soon." 

As a sort of low delirium overtook her senses, her fan- 
tasies were all of fair and lovely sights and sweet sounds. 
She asked me "where I got the chain of pearls I was wear- 
ing, and why she had never seen it before?" She ex- 
claimed at the beauty of garlands of flowers wreathing 
pictures and window-cornices, invisible to our eyes. Music 
— a passion of her life — was a solace in the fearful restless- 
ness of the dying hours. She would have us sing to her — 
first one, then the other, for an hour at a time — lying peace- 
fully attent, with that unearthly radiance upon her face 
that never left it until the coffin-lid shut it from our sight, 
and joining in, when a favorite hymn was sung, with the 

350 



A CRUCIAL CRISIS 

rich contralto which was her "part" in our family con- 
certs. 

"She is singing herself away," said my husband, at twi- 
light on the ninth of May — my mother's birthday. 

At nine o'clock that evening the swan-song was hushed. 

We carried her down to Richmond, the next day but one. 

I have said elsewhere that it is not given to one to have 
two perfect, all-satisfying, friendships this side of the Land 
that is aU Love. She had gladdened our cottage for little 
over a month. It was never quite the same after she flew 
heavenward. Nor,was my life. 

To everybody else, it seemed that the "stirring" of the 
nest began during the visit we paid to Northern friends 
that summer. 

Our vacation was longer than usual. It could not be 
gay, for our mourning garments expressed but inade- 
quately the gloom from which our spirits could not escape, 
with the memory of two bereavements fresh in the minds 
of aU. 

It was during this sojourn with the relatives, whose 
adoption of me had been frankly affectionate from the be- 
ginning of our association, that I learned of the desire of 
my father-in-law to have his son removed nearer to the 
rest of the family. The old Judge was proud and fond of 
the boy, and Virginia was a long distance away from New 
York — to him, and other loyal Middle Statesmen, as truly 
the Hub of Civilization as Boston to the born Bostonian. 
Moreover, the Village Church at Charlotte Court-House was 
a country charge, although eminently respectable in char- 
acter, and honorable in aU things pertaining to church 
traditions. Other men as young, and, in the father's opin- 
ion, inferior in talent and education, were called to city 
parishes. "It was not right for Edward to bury himself 
in the backwoods until such time as he would be too near 
the dead line, with respect to age, to hope for preferment." 

351 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

All this and more of the like purport fell upon unheeding 
ears, when addressed to me. I had but one answer to make, 
after listening respectfully to argument and appeal : 

"I promised Edward, of my own free will and accord, 
before our marriage, that I would never attempt to sway 
his judgment in anything relating to his profession. Least 
of all, would I cast the weight of what influence I might 
have into either scale, if he were called upon to make a 
change of pastorate. He must do as he thinks best." 

More than one church had made overtures to the rising 
man, and his kindred were hanging eagerly upon his de- 
cision. The initial "stir" had been given. It was a 
positive rehef when we turned our faces southward. 

The nest was full that autumn. My husband's widower 
brother-in-law, crushed by his late bereavement, and com- 
pelled to resign the home in which his wife had taken just 
pride; helpless, as only a man of strictly domestic tastes 
can be in such circumstances, abandoned his profession of 
the law, and resolved to study divinity. My brother Her- 
bert turned his back upon a promising business career, 
and made the same resolution. Both men were rusty in 
Latin and Greek, and neither knew anything of Hebrew. 
My husband — ever generous to a fault in the expenditure 
of his own time and strength in the service of others — 
rashly offered to "coach" them for a few months. I think 
they beheved him, when he represented that Latin was 
mere play to him, and that an hour or two a day would 
be an advantage to him in refreshing his recollection of 
other dead languages. 

Alice and I bemoaned ourselves, in confidence and privily, 
over the loss of the quietly-happy evenings when we sewed 
or crocheted, while the third person of the trio read aloud, 
as few other men could read — according to our notion. We 
grudged sharing the merry chats over the little round table 
with those who were not quite au fait to all our mots de 

352 



A CRUCIAL CRISIS 

famille, and did not invariably sympathize with our judg- 
ment of people and things. Mr. Frazee was one of the most 
genial of men — good through and through, and as kind of 
heart as he was engaging in manner. My brother was a 
fine young fellow, and his sisters loved him dearly. It 
was ungracious, ungenerous, and all the other "uns" in 
the Enghsh language, to regret the former order of every- 
day life. We berated ourselves soundly, at each of our 
secret conferences, and kept on doing it. Home was still 
passing lovely, but the stirring went on. 

Is everything — moral, spiritual, and physical — epidemic? 
I put the question to myself when, less than a week after 
the arrival of an invitation to become the leader of the 
Third Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia, and 
before a definite answer was returned, the mail brought an 
important document, portentous with signatures and seals 
official, requesting Rev. Edward Payson Terhune to assume 
the pastorate of the First Reformed Church in Newark, 
New Jersey. 

Here was a crucial test of my voluntary pledge never, by 
word, look, or deed, to let my husband suspect the trend of 
my inclinations with respect to any proposed change of 
clerical relations! 

For, as I am at liberty now to confess, I wanted to go 
to Richmond horribly! Family, friends, ties of early as- 
sociation, strengthened by nearly fifteen years of residence 
at the formative period of life; the solicitations of parents, 
brothers, sisters, and true and tried intimates, who wrote to 
say how delighted they were at the prospect of having me 
"ba^ home" — tugged at my heartstrings until I needed 
Spartan firmness of will and stoical reticence, to hold me 
fast to my vow. Meanwhile, letters bearing Northern 
postmarks were fluttering down upon the one whose must 
be, not the casting vote alone, but the responsibility of the 
decision of what he felt was one of the most momentous 

353 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

problems he was ever to face. Fortunately, neither of us 
knew then the full gravity of the crisis. 

Looking back from the top of the hill, I see so clearly 
the working out of a benign and merciful design in what 
was then perplexity, puzzle, and pain, that I cannot say 
whether humility or devout gratitude has the ascendancy 
in my thoughts. Especially is this true when I reflect 
that strength was vouchsafed to me to hold my peace, even 
from what I conceived was "good," when my husband 
brought both calls to me, after four days of anxious 
deliberation, and bade me speak one word in favor of, 
or against, either. 

Side by side, they lay upon my table, and with them a 
paper upon which he had set down, clearly and fairly, the 
pros and cons of each. 

He read these aloud, slowly and emphatically, then 
looked up at me. 

"I am in a sore strait! Can you help me?" 

In my heart I thought I could, and that right speedily. 
With my tongue I said: "No one has a right to say a 
word. It is a matter between God and yourself." 

He took up the papers silently, and went to the study. 
And I prayed, with strong crying and tears, that God 
would send us to Richmond. 

An hour later he came back. The hght of a settled pur- 
pose was in his face. All he said was : 

"I have decided to go to Newark. We will talk it over 
to-morrow morning." 

He slept soundly that night, for the first time in a week. 
So did not I! 



XXXVI 

MIGRATION NORTHWARD — ACCLIMATION — ALBERT EDWARD, 
PRINCE OF WALES, IN NEW YORK — POLITICAL PORTENTS 

One who had known my husband well for fifty years, 
wrote of him soon after his translation: ''More than any 
other man I ever knew, he had a genius for friendship." 

This testimony is amply supported by the fact that he 
kept, to his journey's end, the friends whose loving con- 
fidence he gained during the five years of his Charlotte 
pastorate. Those who loved him in his youth loved him 
to the end — or so many of them as remained to see the 
beautiful close of his long day. 

We left our Parsonage home and the parish, which was 
our first love, laden with proofs of the deep affection in- 
spired by devoted service in behalf of a united constituency, 
and the rare personal gifts of the man who suffered, in the 
parting, a wrench as sharp as that which made the separa- 
tion a grief to each member of the flock he was leaving. 
It was a just tribute to his integrity of purpose and con- 
scientiousness that the purity of his motives in deciding 
upon the step were never questioned. Leading men in the 
church said openly that they could not have hoped to keep 
him, after his talents and his ability to fill worthily a wider 
field were recognized in the world outlying this section of 
the Great Vineyard. They had foreseen that the parting 
must come, and that before long. He was a growing man, 
and the sphere they offered was narrow. 

It was in no spirit of Christian philosophy that I dis- 
mantled the nest among the oaks, and packed my Lares 

24 355 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and Penates with a fair show of cheerfulness. Inly, I 
was in high revolt for a full week after the die was cast. 
The final acceptance of the inevitable, and the steadfast 
setting of my face Northward, ensued upon the persuasion 
that the one and only thing for a sensible, God-fearing 
woman to do was to make the very best of what no human 
power could avert. 

It is a family saying, based upon the assertion of my 
eldest daughter, that "if mother were set down in the 
middle of the Desert of Sahara, and made to comprehend 
that she must spend the rest of her days there, she would, 
within ten minutes, begin to expatiate upon the many 
advantages of a dry climate as a residential region." 

By the time we stayed our flight in Richmond, where 
we spent our Christmas, I took from the worn and harassed 
man of the hour the burden of explanation and defence of 
the reasons for tearing ourselves up by the roots and trans- 
planting the tender vine into what some of our best wishers 
called, "ahen soil." I had worked myself into an honest 
defender of the Middle States in contradistinction to 
"Yankee land," before we departed, bag, baggage, and 
baby, for the new home. 

Mr. Terhune had preached twice in Newark, in Decem- 
ber, after foraially accepting the call. We removed to that 
city in February of 1859. 

With the Saharan spirit in full flow, I met the welcoming 
"people"; settled in the house we bought in a pleasant 
quarter of the growing city — then claiming a population 
of less than seventy-five thousand — installed white ser- 
vants ; received and returned calls, and was, for the 
first time in my life, homesick at heart for three 
months. 

In the recollection of the eighteen years that succeeded 
that period of blind rebellion against the gentle leading 
which was, for us, wisdom and loving-kindness through- 

356 



ACCLIMATION 

out, I write down the confession in shame and confusion 
of face, and abasement of soul. 

I stay the course of the narrative at this point to record, 
devoutly and gratefully, that never had pastor and pastor's 
wife, in any section of our land, a parish in which '' pleasant 
places" did more richly abound. I would write down, yet 
more emphatically and thankfully, the amazing fact that, 
in the dozen-and-a-half years of my dwelling among them, 
I never had a word of unkind criticism of myself and my 
ways; not a remark that could wound or offend was 
ever addressed to me. 

I wish I might have that last paragraph engraved in 
golden capitals and set to the everlasting credit of that 
Ideal Parish! To this hour, I turn instinctively in times 
of joy and of sorrow, as to members of the true household 
of faith, to the comparatively small band of the once large 
congregation who are left alive upon the earth. 

For eighteen years I walked up the central aisle of the 
church, as I might tread the halls and chambers of my 
father's house in that far Southern town, with the conscious- 
ness that we were surrounded by an atmosphere of affec- 
tionate appreciation, at once comforting and invigorating. 

All this — and I understate, rather than exaggerate, the 
real state of circumstance and feeling I am trying to de- 
pict — was the more surprising, because I went to tliis peo- 
ple young, and with Httle experience as a clergyman's wife. 
In Charlotte, I had, as we have seen, done no "church 
work." I was petted and made much of, in consideration 
of my position as the wife of the idolized pastor, and my 
newness to the duties of country housekeeping and the 
nursery. In Newark, I was gradually to discover that I 
could not shirk certain obligations connected with parish 
and city charities. The logic of events — never the moni- 
tions of friends and parishioners — opened my eyes to the 
truth. When, at length, I took charge of a girls' Bible 

357 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Class, and, some years after, worked up the Infant Class 
from tens to hundreds, there was much expression of un- 
feigned gratification and eager rallying to my help, not 
an intimation of relief that I ''had, at last, seen my way 
clear to the performance of what everybody else had 
expected of a minister's wife." 

I have never had a higher compHment than was paid me 
by the invitation, a dozen years back, to address the 
Alumni of Union Theological Seminary in New York 
City upon the subject of "Ministers' Wives." 

I took occasion, in the presence of that grave and rev- 
erend assembly of distinguished theologues, to pay a brief 
tribute, as strong as words could make it, to that Ideal 
Parish. I could not withhold it then. I cannot keep it 
back now. I believe my experience in this regard to be 
highly exceptional. More's the pity and the shame! 

Five children were born to us in those happy, busy years. 
Each was adopted lovingly by the people, so far as prideful 
affection and generous deeds impHed adoption. We were 
aU of one family. 

Returning to the direct line of my narrative — the spring 
of 1860 found us well, at work, and contented. I had good 
servants, kindly neighbors, and a gro\ving host of con- 
genial acquaintances. Our proximity to New York was 
an important factor in the hves of both of us, bringing us, 
as it did, within easy reach of the best Ubraries and shops 
in the country, and putting numberless means of enter- 
tainment and education at our very door. There were 
two babies by now — healthy, happy, bright — in every 
way thoroughly satisfactory specimens of infant humanity. 
In the matter of children's nurses, I have been extraor- 
dinarily blessed among American women. In the twenty- 
one years separating the birth of our elder boy from the 
day when the younger was released from nursery govern- 
ment, I had but three of these indispensable comforts. 

358 



PRINCE OF WALES IN NEW YORK 

Two married after years of faithful service; the tliird 
retired upon an invahd's pension. All were Irish by birth. 
After much experience in, and more observation of, the 
Domestic Service of these United States, I incline to be- 
lieve that, as a rule, we draw our best material from Celtic 
emigrant stock. 

So smoothly ran the sands of life that I recall but one 
striking incident in the early part of 1860. That was the 
visit of the Prince of Wales to this country. We witnessed 
the passage of the long procession that received and es- 
corted him up-town, to his quarters at the, then, new and 
fashionable hostelry — the Fifth Avenue Hotel. My hus- 
band went down to the Battery to see the princeling's 
review of the regiments drawn up in line before him, as he 
rode from end to end of the parade-ground. 

Joining us at the window, from which we had a splendid 
view of the pageant, the critic, who was an accomplished 
horseman, reported disdainfully that 'Hhe boy was ex- 
ceedingly awkward. He had no seat to speak of, leaning 
forward, until his weak chin was nearly on a Hne with the 
horse's ears, and sticking his feet out stiffly on each side." 

Our impression of the imperial youth was not more agree- 
able. He sat back in the open coach, "hunched" together 
in an ungainly heap, looking neither to the right nor the 
left, evincing no consciousness of the existence of the 
shouting throngs that Hned the pavements ten deep, other 
than by raising, with the lifeless precision of a mechanical 
toy, the cocked hat he wore as part of the uniform of a 
British colonel. 

There was a big ball the next night, at which gowns of 
fabulous prices were sported, and reported by the news- 
papers, and Albert Edward flitted on to his mother's do- 
minions of Canada, leaving not a ripple in the ocean of 
local and national happenings. 

That ocean was stilling and darkening with the brood- 

359 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ing of a threatening storm. Newspapers bristled with 
portents and denunciations; demagogues bellowed them- 
selves hoarse in parks and from stumps; torchlight pro- 
cessions displayed new and startling features. 

"So much for so little!" sighed I, upon our return from 
a lookout at the nearest corner, commanding long miles 
of marching men. "It was ingenious and amusing; but 
what a deal of driUing those embryo patriots must have 
gone through to do it so well ! And for what ? The Presi- 
dent will be elected, as other Presidents have been, and 
as maybe a hundred others will be, and there the farce 
will end. Does it pay to amuse themselves so very hard?" 

"If we could be sure that it ivould end there!" an- 
swered my husband, with unexpected gravity. "The sky 
is red and lowering in the South. Between politicians, and 
the freedom of the press to play with all sorts of explosives, 
there is no telling what the rabble may do." 

I looked up, startled. 

"You are not in earnest? The good Ship of State has 
been driving straight on to the rocks ever since I can recol- 
lect, and she has not struck yet. Think of the Clay and 
Polk campaign!" 

"Child's play compared with the fight that is on now!" 
was the curt retort. 

Something — I know not what — in his manner moved me 
to put a leading question, 

"Have you made up your mind how you will vote?" 

"Yes." 

"A month ago, you said you had not." 

"A good deal has happened in that month." 

It was not like him to be sententious with me, but I 
pushed the subject. 

"I have never interfered wdth your poUtical opinions, 
as you know, and I don't care to vote, myself; but if I had 
a vote, I should be in no doubt where to cast it. Lovers 

360 



POLITICAL PORTENTS 

of peace and concord should unite upon Bell and Everett. 
That party seems to me to represent the sanest element 
in this mammoth muddle." 

He smiled. 

"To say nothing of your fondness for Mr. Everett. A 
charming gentleman, I grant. But the helm of state is 
not to be in his hands. Even, supposing" — grave again, 
and sighing slightly — "that they are strong enough to 
hold it in a storm." 

There was a boding pause. Then I spoke, and unad- 
visedly : 

"I ask no questions that I think you would not care to 
answer. But I do hope you are not tliinking of voting 
for Abraham Lincoln ? Think of him in the White House ! 
Mr. Buchanan may be weak — and a Democrat. I heard 
father say, as the one drop of comfort he could express 
from his election: 'At any rate, he is a gentleman by 
birth and breeding.' Mr. Lincoln is low-born, and has no 
pretensions to breeding." 

"Then, if I should be so far lost to the proprieties as to 
vote for him, I would better not let either of you know." 
And he glanced teasingly at Ahce, who had just entered 
the room, 

"I could never respect you if you did!" she said, spirited- 
ly. "I am persuaded better things of you." 

A teasing rejoinder was all she got out of him. The 
matter was never brought up again by any of us. When 
Election Day came, I was too proud to seem inquisitive. 
But in my inmost soul I was assured that reticence boded 
no good to my hope of one gallant gentleman's vote for 
Bell and Everett. 

Months afterward, when we were once again of one mind 
with respect to the nation's peril and the nation's need, 
he told me that he had kept his own counsel, not only 
because the truth might grieve me, but that party feeUng 

361 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ran so high in his church he thought it best not to intimate 
to any one how he meant to vote. 

"And, hke Harry Percy's wife, I could be trusted not 
to tell what I did not know?" said I. 

" You might have been catechised," he admitted. "There 
are times when the Know-nothing poUcy is the safest." 



XXXVII 

THE PANIC OF '61 — A VIRGINIA VACATION — MUTTERINGS OF 
COMING STORM 

Bayard Taylor said to mc once of a publishing house, 
"An honest firm, but one that has an incorrigible habit of 
failing!" 

The habit was epidemic in the first half of 1861. Among 
others who caught the trick were my pubhshers. Like a 
thunderbolt came the announcement, when I was expect- 
ing my February semi-annual remittance of fat royalties: 
"We regret to inform you that we have been compelled 
to succumb to the stringency of the times." 

The political heavens were black with storm-clouds, and, 
as was inevitable then, and is now, the monetary market 
shut its jaws tightly upon everything within reach. We 
could not reasonably have expected immunity, but we 
had. We had never known the pinch of financial "diffi- 
culties." Prudent salaried men are the last to feel hard 
times, if their wage is paid regularly. I had three books 
in the hands of the " faiHng " firm. All were "good sellers, " 
and I had come to look upon royalties as my husband re- 
garded his salary, as a sure and certain source of revenue. 

We had other and what appeared to us graver anxieties. 
My sister AHce had passed the winter with us, and the 
climate had told unhappily upon her throat. My husband 
had not escaped injury from the pernicious sea-fogs and the 
malarial marshes, over which the breath of the Atlantic 
flowed in upon us. He had a bronchial cough that defied 

363 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

medical treatment; and March, the worst month of the 
twelve for tender throats and susceptible lungs, would soon 
be upon us. His physician, a warm personal friend, or- 
dered him South, and the church seconded the advice by 
a formal grant of an out-of-season vacation. We did not 
change our main plan in consequence of the disappoint- 
ment as to funds. Nor did we noise our loss abroad. 
Somehow, the truth leaked out. Not a word of condolence 
was breathed to us. But on the afternoon of the day but 
one before that set for our departure, the daughter of a neigh- 
borly parishioner dropped in to leave a basket of flowers, 
and to say that her father and mother "would like to call 
that evening, if we were to be at home." I answered that 
we should be glad to see them, and notified my husband 
of the impending call. The expected couple appeared at 
eight o'clock, and by nine the parloi's were thronged with 
guests who "dropped in, in passing, to say 'Good-bye.'" 
None stayed late, and before any took leave, there was the 
presentation of a parcel, through the hands of Edgar 
Farmer, a member of the Consistory, who, in days to come, 
was to be to my husband as David to Jonathan. He was 
young then, and of a goodly presence, with bright, kind 
eyes and a happy gift of speech. Neither Mr. Terhune 
nor I had any misgivings of what was in prospect, when he 
was asked to step forward and face the spokesman deputed 
to wish us Bon voyage and recovery of health in our old 
home. Mr. Farmer said this felicitously, and with genuine 
feehng. Then he asked the pastor's acceptance of a parcel 
"containing reading-matter for the journey." 

The reading-matter was bank-bills, the amount of which 
made us open our eyes wide when the company had dis- 
persed and we undid the ribbons binding the "literature." 

That was their way of doing things in the "Old First." 
A way they never lost. In a dozen-and-a-half years we 
should have become used to it, but we never did. Each 

364 



A VIRGINIA VACATION 

new manifestation of the esteem in which they held their 
leader, and of the royally generous spirit that interfused 
the whole church, as it might the body and soul of one 
man, remained to the last a fresh and dehcious surprise. 

Ten days out of the six weeks of our vacation were 
spent in Charlotte. Mr. Terhune's successor was Rev, 
Henry C. Alexander, one of a family of notable divines 
whose praise is in all the Presbyterian churches. He was 
a bachelor, and the "nest among the oaks" was rented to 
an acquaintance. I did not enter it then, or ever again. 
I even looked the other way when we drove or walked 
past the gate and grove. To let tliis weakness be seen 
would have been ungracious, in the face of the hospitalities 
enlapping us during every hour of our stay. We dined 
with one family, supped with another, spent the night and 
breakfasted with a third, and there was ever a houseful 
of old friends to meet us. My husband wrote to his 
father : 

"Swinging around the circle at a rate that would turn 
steadier heads. And talk of the fat of the land and groaning 
tables! These tables fairly shriek, and the fat flows like a 
river. Heaven send we may live through it! We like it, all 
the same!" 

And enjoyed every hour, albeit senses less agreeably 
preoccupied might have detected the smell of gunpowder 
in the air. 

I am often asked if we were not uneasy for the safety 
of the Union, while in the thick of sectional wordy strife, 
and how it was possible to enjoy visits when much of the 
talk must have jarred upon the sensibihties of loyal lovers 
of that Union. 

The truth is that I had been used to political wrangling 
from my youth up. The fact that South Carolina and six 
other States had seceded in name from the control of the 

365 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Federal government; that, in every county and "Cross- 
Roads" hamlet, from the Gulf of Mexico to Chesapeake 
Bay, bands of volunteers were drilling daily and nightly, 
and that cargoes of arms were arriving from the North and 
in distribution among the enlisted militiamen-, that the 
Southern papers sounded the tocsin of war to the death, 
and ''Death in the last ditch!" and "Down with the 
Yankees!" with every red-hot issue; that a convention 
had been solemnly summoned to meet in Richmond to 
decide upon the action of the Old Dominion at the supreme 
moment of the nation's destiny — weighed marvellously 
little against the settled conviction, well-nigh subhme in 
its fatuousness, that the right must prevail, and that 
such furious folly must die ignominiously before the 
steadfast front maintained by the Union men of the in- 
fected section. 

To my apprehension, so much that we heard was sheer 
gasconade, amusing for a time from its very unreason and 
illogical conclusions, and often indicative of such blatant 
ignorance of the spirit and the resources of the Federal 
government, that I failed to attach to it the importance 
the magnitude of the mischief deserved to have. 

I refused stubbornly to let the clear joy of my hohday 
be clouded by the smoke from blank cartridges. So hght 
was my spirit that I made capital for fun of bombastic 
threats and gloomy predictions, touching the stabling of 
Confederate cavalry in Faneuil Hall inside of three months 
from the day of the inauguration of the "Springfield Ape" 
at Washington. The Vice - President was a full - blooded 
negro, or, at the least, a mulatto, I was assured over and 
over. Wasn't his name damning evidence of the disgrace- 
ful fact? What white man ever called his child " Hannibal" ? 

I supplied other confirmation to one fiery orator: 

"'^aw-lin' sounds suspicious, too. I wonder you have 
not thought of the color that gives to your theory." 

366 



MUTTERINGS OF COMING STORM 

The youth foamed at the mouth. He wore a Secession 
cockade on his breast, and proved, to a demonstration, that 
any Southerner over fourteen years old was equal, on the 
battle-field, to five Yankees. Why not seven, I could never 
ascertain. 

Such funny things were happening hourly, and such fun- 
nier things were said every minute, that I was in what 
we used to call, when I was a child, "a continual gale." 

Let one bit of nonsense illustrate the frivolity that, in the 
retrospect, resembles the pas seul of a child on the edge of 
a reeking crater. 

I was summoned to the drawing-room, one forenoon, to 
receive a call from the son of an old friend who had prom- 
ised his mother to look me up, in passing through the city 
on his way to the "Repubhc of South Carohna." That 
was the letter-head of epistles received from the Palmetto 
State. 

In descending the stairs, I heard the scamper of small 
boots over the floor of the square, central hall, and caught 
the flash of golden curls through the arched doorway 
leading into the narrower passage at the rear of the house. 
Knowing the infinite capacity of my son for ingenious 
mischief, I stayed my progress to the parlor, and looked 
about for some hint as to the nature of the present ad- 
venture. Sofa and chairs were in place, as was the ma- 
hogany table at the far corner. On this was a silver tray, 
and on the tray the pitcher of iced water, which was a 
fixture the year through. Two tumblers flanked it on one 
side, and my visitor had set on the other the sleekest tall 
silk hat I had ever seen outside of a shop window. There 
was absolutely no rational association of ideas between the 
iced water-pitcher and that stunning specimen of head- 
gear. Yet I glanced into the depths of both. One was 
half-full; the other was empty. Clutching the desecrated 
hat wildly, I sped to the sitting-room. "Oh, mother, 

367 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

what is to be done? Eddie has emptied the water-pitcher 
into WiUiam M.'s hat!" 

Whereupon, that gentlest, yet finest, of discipHnarians, 
who would have sent one of her own bairns to bed in the 
middle of the day, for an offence one-tenth as flagrant, 
dropped her sewing on her lap and went off into a speech- 
less convulsion of laughter. A chuckle of intense delight 
from behind her rocking-chair, and a glimpse of dancing 
blue eyes under her elbow, put the finishing touches to a 
scene so discreditable to grandmotherly ideas of domestic 
management, that the family refused to believe the story 
told at the supper-table, when the culprit was safe in his crib. 

Leaving the dishonored "tile" to the merciful manipu- 
lations of the laundress, who begged me to "keep the pore 
young gentleman a-talkin' 'tell she could dry it at the 
fire," I went to meet the unsuspecting victim. 

It was not difficult to keep him talking, when once he 
was launched upon the topic paramount in the mind of 
what he denominated as "every truly loyal and chivalrous 
Son of the South." He had a plan of campaign so well 
concerted and so thoroughly digested, that it could have 
but one culmination. 

"But why Faneuil Hall ?" I demurred, plaintively. " You 
are the sixth man who has informed me that your cavalry are 
to tie and feed their horses there. Why not the City Hall 
in New York ? There must be stable-room short of Boston." 

He flushed brick-red. 

"It is no laughing matter to us who have been ground 
down so long under the iron heels of Yankee mud-sills!" 

I found his mixed metaphors so diverting that I was 
near forgetting the ruined head-piece, and the inexorable 
necessity of confession. 

Sobering under the thought, I let him go on, lending but 
half an ear, yet, in seeming, bowed by the weight of his dis- 
course. Moved by my mournful silence, he stopped midway. 

368 



MUTTERINGS OF COMING STORM 

"I beg your pardon if my feelings and patriotism have 
carried me too far. I own that I am hot-headed — " 

Another such chance would not come in a life-time. I 
broke his sentence short. 

"Oh, I am glad to know that! For my boy has filled 
your hat with iced water!" 

Eheu! That night's supper was the last merry meal 
the old home was to know for many a long month and 
year. For, by breakfast-time next day, the news had 
come of the bombardment of Fort Simiter, and men's 
hearts were hot within them, and women's hearts were 
failing them for fear of battle, murder, and sudden death 
to sons, husbands, and brothers. 

One might have fancied that a visible pall hung over 
the city, so universal and deep was the agony of suspense. 

While the recollection of suspense and agony was fresh 
in my mind, I wrote of the awful awakening from my 
fool's paradise of incredulity and levity: 

"For two days, the air was thick with rumors of war 
and bloodshed. For two days, the eyes and thoughts of 
the nation were fixed upon that fire-girt Southern island, 
with its brave but feeble garrison — the representative of 
that nation's majesty — testifying, in the defiant boom of 
every cannon's answer to the rebel bombardment, that 
resistance to armed treason is henceforward to be learned 
as one of the nation's laws. For two days, thousands and 
hundreds of thousands of loyal hearts all over this broad 
land, cried mightily unto our country's God to avert this 
last and direst trial — the humihation of our Flag by hands 
that once helped to rear it in the sight of the world, as the 
ensign of national faith. And under the whole expanse 
of heaven, there was no answer to those prayers, except 
the reverberation of the cruel guns. 

*' On Saturday, April 14th, the End came!" 



XXXVIII 

THE FOURTEENTH OF APRIL, 1861, IN RICHMOND 

We had planned to leave Richmond for home on Tues- 
day afternoon. At noon on Saturday, my husband asked 
me if I would not like to prolong my stay with my rela- 
tives, adding significantly: 

"We do not know how long it may be before you can 
get South again. There is thunder in the air." 

I looked up from the letter I was writing to Newark : 

"Thunder — alone — is harmless. I take no stock in gas- 
conade that is only thunder. And if trouble is coming, 
it is clear that our place is not here." 

The letter- writing went on not uncheerfully. Far down 
in my soul was the belief that a peaceful issue must be in 
store for the land beloved of the Lord. Were we not 
brethren? When brought, face to face, with the fact that 
brothers' hands must be dipped in brothers' blood, re- 
action was inevitable. 

So foolish was I, and ignorant of the excesses to which 
sectional fury can carry individuals and nations. 

I was in my room, getting ready for our last walk among 
scenes endeared to us by thousands of associations, my 
husband standing by, hat in hand, when a terrific report 
split the brooding air and rent the very heavens. Another 
and another followed. We stood transfixed, without 
motion or speech, until we counted, silently, seven. 

It was the number of the seceding States! As if pan- 
demonium had waited for the seventh boom to die sullenly 

370 



THE FOURTEENTH OF APRIL, 1861 

away among the hills, the pause succeeding the echo was 
ended by an outburst of yells, cheers, and screams that 
beggars description. The streets in our quiet quarter 
were aUve with men, women, and children. Fire-crackers, 
pistols, and guns were discharged into the throbbing air. 

"The fort has fallen!" broke in one breath from our lips. 
And simultaneously: "The Lord have mercy upon the 
country!" 

We ran down-stairs and into the street. 

My sister "Mea" was upon the front porch, and the steps 
were thronged by children and servants, wild with curiosity. 

I have not mentioned that my sister had married, two 
years before, Mr. John Miller, a Scotchman by birth. He 
was much liked and respected by us all, and it spoke 
volumes for his breeding and the genuine good feeling 
prevailing among us, that although he was the only 
"original secessionist" in our household band, our cordial 
relations remained unbroken in spite of the many poHtical 
arguments we had had with him. 

His wife was holding aloft her baby boy, a pretty year- 
old, in her arms. A Secession cockade was pinned upon 
his breast; in his chubby hand he flourished a rebel flag, 
and he laughed down into her radiant face. 

We feigned not to see them as we hurried past. But 
a gulf seemed to open at my feet. As in a baleful dream, 
I comprehended, in the sick whirl of conflicting sensations, 
what Rebellion, active and in arms, would mean in hun- 
dreds of homes on both sides of the border. 

"Is the world going mad?" muttered my husband, be- 
tween his teeth, and I knew that the same horror was 
present with him. 

Secession flags blossomed in windows and from roofs; 
were waved from doors and porches by girls and women; 
were shaken in mad exultation by boys on the sidewalks; 
hung upon lamp-posts, and were stretched from side to 

25 371 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

side of the street. It was like the magical upspringing of 
baneful fungi. Where had they all come from? And at 
what infernal behest had they leaped into being? 

The living stream poured toward the Capitol Square, 
and it swept us with it. The grounds were filled with a 
tumultuous crowd. Upon the southern terrace was the 
park of artillery that had fired the salute of seven guns. 
As we entered the upper gate a long procession of men 
issued from the western door of the Capitol, and descended 
the steps. 

"The convention has adjourned for the day," remarked 
Mr. Terhune. We were at the base of the Washington 
monument, and he drew me up on the lower step of the 
base to avoid the press. 

The delegates streamed by us in groups; some striding 
in excited haste; talking gleefully, and gesticulating wildly. 
Others were grave and slow, silent, or deep in low-toned 
conversation; others yet — and these were marked men 
already — walked with bent heads, and faces set in wordless 
sadness. One of these, recognizing Mr. Terhune, approached 
us, and with a brief apology to me, drew him a few paces 
apart. 

Three years before, I had seen the ceremonies by which 
this monument — Crawford's finest work in marble — was 
uncovered and dedicated. On the next day, Mr. Everett 
had repeated his oration on Washington in the Richmond 
theatre. The silver-tongued orator had joined hands, then 
and there, with Tyler, Wise, and Yancey, in proclaiming the 
unity of the nation. General Scott had sat in the centre 
of the stage, like a hoary keystone in the semi-circle of 
honorable men and counsellors. 

Was it all a farce, even then, this talk of brotherhood and 
patriotism? And of what avail were wisdom and diplo- 
macy and the multitude of counsels, if this were to be the 
end? 

372 



THE FOURTEENTH OF APRIL, 1861 

I was saying it to myself in disgustful bewilderment, 
when the crowd cheered itself mad over a fresh demon- 
stration of popular passion. The rebel flag had been run 
up from the peak of the Capitol roof! 

My husband came back to me instantly. He was pale, 
and the lines of his mouth were tense. 

''Let us get out of this!" he said. "I cannot breathe!" 

On the way to Gamble's Hill — a long-loved walk with 
us — I heard how Smnter had fallen. We were not hope- 
less, yet, as to the final outcome of the tragical complica- 
tion that had turned the heads of the populace. The out- 
rage offered the Flag of our common country must open 
the eyes of true men, and all who had one spark of pa- 
triotism left in their souls. We could have no longer any 
doubt as to the real animus of the RebelHon. One thing 
was certain: To-day's work would decide the question 
for Virginia. She could not hang back now. 

Thus reasoning, we took our last look of the lovely 
panorama of river, islets, and hills ; of the city of the dead 
— beautiful in wooded heights and streams and peaceful 
valleys, on our right — while on the left was the city of the 
living, noble and fair, and, in the distance, now as silent 
as Hollywood. 

My companion hfted his arm abruptly and pointed north- 
ward. 

A long, low line of cloud hung on the horizon — dun, 
with brassy edges — sullen and dense, save where a rain- 
bow, vivid with emerald, rose-color, and gold, spanned the 
murky vapor. 

"Fair weather cometh out of the North," uttered the 
resolute optimist. ''With the Lord is terrible majesty. 
After all, He is omnipotent. We will hope on!" 

We were measurably cheered on our way back to the 
heart of the city by the sight of the Flag of Virginia fljang 
serenely from the staff where had flaunted the Stars and 

373 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Bars, an hour ago. At supper, my father related with 
gusto how a deputation of Secessionists had waited on 
the Governor to offer congratulations upon the Confeder- 
ate victory. How he had received them but sourly, being, 
as the deputation should have known, an "inveterate 
Unionist." When felicitated upon the result of the siege, 
he returned that he "did not consider it a matter for any 
compliments." At that instant he caught sight of the 
flag hoisted to the roof of the Capitol, demanded by whose 
order it was done, and straightway commanded it to be 
hauled down and the State flag, usually sported when 
the Legislature was in session, to be run up in its 
stead. 

"Governor Letcher has a rough tongue when he chooses 
to use it," commented my father. "He is honest, through 
and through." 

The talk of the evening could run in but one channel. 
Our nerves were keyed up to the highest tension, and the 
day's events had gone deep into mind and heart. Two or 
three visitors dropped in, and both sides of the Great 
Controversy were brought forward, temperately, but with 
force born of conviction. If I go somewhat into the de- 
tails of the conversation, it is because I would make clear 
the truth that each party in the struggle we feared might 
be imminent, believed honestly that justice and right were 
at the foundation of his faith. I wrote down the substance 
of the memorable discussion, as I recorded and published 
other incidents of the ever-to-be-remembered era, while 
the history of it was still in the making. I am, then, sure 
that I give the story correctly. 

John Miller opened the ball by "hoping that the North 
was now convinced that the South was in earnest in 
maintaining her rights." 

I liked my Scotch brother-in-law, and we bandied jests 
safely and often. But it irked me that we should have a 

374 



THE FOURTEENTH OF APRIL, 1861 

Secessionist in a loyal family, and I retorted flippantly, 
lest I should betray the underlying feehng: 

''There has been no madness equal to Secession since the 
swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea. The 
choking in the waves will come later." 

''Let wise men stand from under!" he retorted, smihng 
good-humoredly. "As to the choking, that may not be 
such an easy job as you think." 

A visitor took up the word, and seriously : 

"The dissatisfaction of the South is no new thing. It 
is as old as the Constitution itself. John Randolph said of 
it: 'I saw what Washington did not see. Two other men 
in Virginia saw it — the poison under its wings. ^ Grayson, 
another far-sighted statesman, prophesied just what has 
come to pass. He said of the consoHdation poHcy taught 
in the Constitution: 'It will, in operation, be found un- 
equal, grievous, and oppressive.' He foresaw that the 
manufacturer of the North would dominate the agri- 
culturist of the South; that there would be burdensome 
taxation without adequate representation; in short, that 
there would be numberless encroachments of the North 
upon the prerogatives of the Southern slaveholder." 

"He said nothing of the manifest injustice in a republic, 
of the election of a candidate by the votes of a petty fac- 
tion, dominant for the time, because the other party split 
and ran several men?" 

This was said by a young man who had not spoken until 
then. 

My father replied: "Suppose Brcckenridge had been 
elected? Would that have been the triumph of a faction?" 

"Circumstances alter cases," said my brother Horace, 
dryly. 

Everybody laughed, except the man who had quoted 
Grayson and Randolph. 

"It is not easy for the Mother of Presidents to submit 

375 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

to the rule of those whom, as Job says, they would have 
scorned to put with their cattle," he said, with temper. 

I saw the blue fire in my husband's eyes before he 
spoke ; but his voice was even and full ; every sentence was 
studiedly calm. 

''For more than seventy years, the South has prospered 
under the Constitution, which, according to the renowned 
authorities cited just now, had poison under its wings. 
Hers have been the chief places in our national councils, 
and the most lucrative offices in the gift of the government. 
It is her boast, if we are to believe what this one of your 
leading papers says" — unfolding and reading from the 
editorial page— "that 'since the organization of the Union, 
she has held the balance of power — as it is her right to do — 
her citizens being socially, morally, and intellectually, 
superior to those of the North.'" 

My father filliped his cigar ash into the fire. 

"Now you are improvising?" 

"Not a word! Our editor goes on to say further: 'Our 
whilom servants have lately strangely forgotten their 
places. They now aspire to an equal share in the admin- 
istration of the govermnent. They have presumed to elect 
from their own ranks an illiterate, base-born, sectional 
tool, whom they rely upon to do their foul work of sub- 
verting our sovereignty. It is high time the real masters 
awoke from their fatal lethargy, and forced their insub- 
ordinate hinds to stand once more, cap in hand, at their 
behest.'" 

The stump of my father's cigar followed the ash. 

"Come, come, my dear boy! it isn't fair to take the 
ravings of one fool as the sentiment of the section in which 
that stuff is printed. I could quote talk, as intemperate 
and incendiary, from your Northern papers. You wouldn't 
have us suppose that you and other sane voters indorse 
them?" 

376 



THE FOURTEENTH OF APRIL, 1861 

" I grant what you say, sir. And, as I long ago affirmed, 
the shortest and best way to put out the fire that threatens 
the integrity of the government, would be to muzzle every 
political ranter in the country, and sui:)press every news- 
paper for six months. The conflagration would die for 
want of fuel." 

My mother interposed here: 

"Good people, don't you think there is 'somewhat too 
much of this' ? I, for one, refuse to believe that anything 
but smoke will come of the alarm that is frightening 
weak brothers out of their wits. The good Ship of State 
will 'sail on, strong and great,' when our children's children 
are in their graves." 

She changed the current of talk, but not of thought. 
After the rest had gone, there lingered a young fellow 
whose case was so striking an example of a host of others, 
who were forced into the forefront of the battle, that I 
take leave to relate it. 

He still lives, an honored citizen of the State he loved 
as a son loves the mother who bore and nursed him. There- 
fore I shall not use his real name. Eric S., as I shall call 
him, was an intimate friend of my brother Herbert, and 
as much at home in our house as if he were, in very deed, 
one of the blood and name. He had visited us in Newark, 
and made warm friends there, during the past year. Mr. 
Terhune had had long and serious consultations with him 
since we came to Virginia, and, within a few days, as the 
war-cloud took form, had urged him to accompany us to 
New Jersey, or, at least, to promise to come to us should 
hostilities actually begin between the two sections. The 
lad (scarcely twenty-one) was an ardent UnionivSt, and, al- 
though a member of a crack volunteer company in Rich- 
mond, had declared to us that nothing would ever induce 
him to bear arais under the Rebel government. Mea and 
her spouse went up-stairs early, and the rest of us were in 

377 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

hearty sympathy with our guest. He had not taken an 
active share in the discussion, and his distrait manner and 
sober face prepared us, in part, for the disclosure that fol- 
lowed the departure of the others. 

He had been credibly and confidentially informed that 
a mighty pressure would be brought to bear upon the con- 
vention, at their next sitting, to force the Ordinance of 
Secession. If it were carried, by fair means of foul, every 
man who could bear arms would be called into the field. 

While he talked, the boy stood against the mantel — 
erect, lithe, and handsome — the typical mother's and 
sister's darling, yet manly in every look and lineament. 
The thought tore through my imagination while I looked 
at him: 

"And it is material like this that will go to feed the 
maw of War! — such flesh and blood as his that will be 
mangled by bullet and shell!" 

I had never had the ghastly reality brought so near to 
me until that moment. 

"Oh-h!" I shuddered. "You won't stay to be shot at 
hke a mad dog!" 

The first bright smile that had lighted his face was on it. 
"It isn't being shot at that I am thinking of." The gleam 
faded suddenly. "I don't think I am a coward. It 
doesn't run in the blood. But" — flinging out his arm with 
a passionate gesture that said more than his words — "I 
think that would be paralyzed if I were to lift it against the 
dear old flag!" 

Before he left it was agreed privately, between him and 
my husband, that he would try his fortune on the other 
side of Mason and Dixon's line, should the axe fall that 
would sever Virginia from the Union her sons had been 
mainly instrumental in creating. 

Sunday came and went. Such a strange, sad Sunday 
as it was! with the marked omission, in every pulpit, of 

378 



THE FOURTEENTH OF APRIL, 1861 

the prayer for the President of the United States and others 
in authority; with scanty congregations in the churches, 
and growing throngs of excited talkers at the street corners, 
and knots of dark-browed men in hotel lobbies, and the 
porches of private houses. 

In the length and breadth of the town but one Union 
flag was visible. Nicholas Mills, a wealthy citizen of high 
character and fearless temper, defied pubhc opinion and 
risked popular wrath, by keeping a superb flag flying at 
the head of a tall staff in his garden on Leigh Street. We 
went out of our way, in returning from afternoon service, 
to refresh eyes and spirits with the sight. 

On Monday, the mutterings of rebellion waxed into a 
roar of angry revolt over the published proclamation of 
the President, calling for an army of seventy-five thousand 
men to quell the insurrection. The quota from Virginia 
was, I think, five thousand. 

"A fatal blunder!" said my father, in stern disapproval. 

My husband's answer was prompt: 

"To omit her name from the roll would be an accusation 
of disloyalty." 

The senior shook his head. 

"It may have been a choice of evils. I hope he has 
chosen the less ! But I doubt it! I doubt it!" 

So might Eli have looked and spoken when his heart 
trembled for the ark of the Lord. 

That afternoon, the flagstaff in the MiUs garden was 
empty. The Stars and Stripes were banned as an unholy 
ensign. 

Eric S. paid us a flying visit that evening. His parents 
urged his going. The father was especially anxious that 
he should not risk the probabihty of impressment, and, 
should he refuse to serve, of imprisonment. Already Union 
men were regarded with suspicion. The exodus of the dis- 
affected could not be long delayed. He had influential 

379 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

family connections at the North who would see to it that 
he found occupation. When we parted that night, it was 
with a definite understanding that he would be our travel- 
ling companion. 

Tuesday noon, he appeared, haggard and well-nigh des- 
perate. Going, like the honorable gentleman he was, to 
the Colonel of his regiment early in the day, to tender 
his resignation and declare his intentions, he was stricken 
by the news that the State had seceded in secret session 
Monday night. 

Whereupon the Colonel had offered the services of his 
regiment to the authorities of the Confederate States. 
They were accepted. 

"You are now in the Confederate army," added the 
superior officer, ''and, from ]iresent indications, we will 
not be idle long." 

"But," stammered the stunned subaltern, "I am going 
North this very afternoon with friends, and I shall not 
consent to serve." 

"If you attempt to leave, you will be reckoned as a 
deserter from the regular army, and dealt with accord- 
ingly." 

I do not attempt to estimate what proportion of men, 
who would have remained loyal to flag and government 
if they could, were coerced, or cajoled, into bearing arms 
under a government they abhorred. I tell the plain facts 
in the instance before me. 

Eric S. fought in fifteen general engagements, and came 
out with his life when the cruel war was over. He told 
with deep satisfaction, in after-years, that he had never 
worn the Confederate uniform, but always that of his own 
regiment. 

It is easy for us to prate, at this distance from those times 
of trial to brave men's souls, of the high and sacred duty 
of living and, if need be, of dying for the right. From our 

380 



THE FOURTEENTH OF APRIL, 1861 

standpoint, it is as clear as the noonday sun, that allegiance 
to the general government should outrank allegiance to the 
State in which one has chanced to be born and to live. 
We have had an awful object-lesson in the study of that 
creed since the day when the Virginian, who saw his native 
State invaded, believed that he had no alternative but to 
''strike for his altars and his fires." 

Upon the gallant fellows who, seeing this, and no further, 
risked their Hves unto the death, fell the penalty of the 
demagogues' sin. 

We may surely lay the blame where it belongs. 



XXXIX 

"the last through train for four years" 

I COPY in substance, and sometimes verbatim, the ac- 
count written in 1861, and published later, of our journey 
northward in the last train that went through to Wash- 
ington before the outbreak of hostilities. 

I preface the narrative by saying that, by the merciful 
provision of the Divine Father, Who will not try us beyond 
our strength, we, one and all, kept up to our own hearts 
the sanguine increduhty in the possibiHty of the worst 
coming to pass, which was characteristic of Union lovers 
at the South, up to the battle of Manassas. 

After that, the scales feU from all eyes. Had not my 
mother hoped confidently that the war-cloud would blow 
over, and that, before long, she would not have allowed 
Ahce to go back to Newark with usX- My place was with 
my husband, but this young daughter she had the right 
to keep with her. 

Had I not hoped for a peaceful solution of the national 
problem, if only through the awakening of the fraternal love 
of those whose fathers had fought, shoulder to shoulder, to 
wrest their country from a common oppressor, I could not 
have said "Good-bye" smihngly to home and kindred. 
AVhen I said to my mother: "We shall have you with us 
at the seashore, this summer," it was not in bravado, to 
cheat her into beHef in my cheerfulness. 

Our party of Mr. Terhune, Alice, our boy and baby 
Christine, with their nurse and myself, was comfortably 

382 



"LAST THROUGH TRAIN FOR FOUR YEARS" 

bestowed in the train that was to meet the boat at Acquia 
Creek. Luggage and luncheon were looked after as sed- 
ulously as if there were no superior interest in our minds. 
The very commonplaceness of the details of getting ready 
and sending us off, exactly as had been done, time and 
time again, were in themselves heartening. What had been, 
would be. To-morrow should be as to-day. 

When we and our appurtenances were comfortably be- 
stowed in the ladies' car (there were no parlor cars or 
sleepers, as yet), I had leisure to note what was passing 
without. The scene should be that which always attends 
the departure of a passenger train from a provincial city. 
Yet I felt, at once, that there was a difference. 

I noticed, and not without an undefined sense of un- 
easiness, the unusual number of strollers that lounged up 
and down the sidewalks, and loitered about the train, and 
that some of these were evidently listening to the guarded 
subtones to which the voices of all — even the rudest of 
the loungers — were modulated. With this shade of uneasi- 
ness there stole upon me a strange, indescribable sense of 
the unreality of all that I saw and heard. The familiar 
streets and houses were seen, as through the bewildering 
vapors of a dream; men and women glided by like phan- 
toms, and there was a shimmer of red-and-orange light in 
the air — the reflection of the glowing west — that was vague 
and dazing, not dazzhng. 

The train sHd away from the station. My father and 
my brother Horace lifted their hats to us from the pave- 
ment; we held the children up to the open window to 
kiss their hands to them; I leaned forward for one last, 
fond look into the dear eyes, and our journey had 
begun. 

Not a word was exchanged between the members of our 
party, while we rumbled slowly up Broad Street toward 
the open country. 

383 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I was unaccountably indisposed to talk, and this feeling 
seemed to pervade the company of passengers. The dreamy 
haze enveloped me again. The car was very full and very 
quiet. The languorous hues of the west swooned into twi- 
light, and here and there a star peeped through the gray 
veil of the sky. 

We had cleared the city limits, and the blending of day- 
light and the falling darkness were most confusing to the 
eye, when I became aware that the train was slowing up 
where there was no sign of a switch or "turn-out." If it 
actually halted, it was but for a second, just long enough 
to enable two men, standing close to the track, to board 
the train. They entered our car, and my husband pressed 
my arm as they passed down the aisle to seats diagonally 
opposite to us. 

Under cover of the rattle and roar of the speeding 
train, he told me presently — after cautioning me not to 
glance in their direction — that they were Messrs. Carlisle 
and Dent — well known to visitors to the convention 
as most prominent among the leaders of the Union 
party. 

On through the gathering gloom rolled the ponderous 
train — the only moving thing abroad, on that enchanted 
night. Within it there was none of the hum of social 
intercourse one might have expected in the circumstances. 
Adult passengers were not drowsy, for every figure was up- 
right, and the few faces, dimly visible in the low light of 
the lamps overhead, were wakeful — one might have im- 
agined, watchful. I learned subsequently that the in- 
sufficient light was purposely contrived by conductor and 
brakemen, and why. But for the touch of my husband's 
hand, laid in sympathy or reassurance upon mine, and the 
sight of my babies, sleeping peacefully — one in the 
nurse's arms, the other on the seat beside her, his head in 
her lap — I might have beheved the weird light within, the 

384 



"LAST THROUGH TRAIN FOR FOUR YEARS" 

darkness without, and the motionless shapes and saddened 
faces about me, accessories to the fantasy that gained 
steadily upon me. 

The spell was broken rudely — terribly — at Fredericks- 
burg. We steamed right into the heart of a crowd, assem- 
bled to await the arrival of the train, which halted there 
for wood and water. It was a tumultuous throng, and 
evidently drawn thither with a purpose understood by 
all. The babel of queries and exclamations smote the 
breezeless night-air like a hail-storm. It was apparent 
that the railway officials returned curt and unsatisfactory 
replies, for the noise gathered volume, and uncompliment- 
ary expletives flew freely. All at once, a rush was made in 
the direction of the ladies' car. Eager and angry visages, 
dusky in shadow, or ruddied by torch-light, were pressed 
against closed windows, and thrust impudently into the 
few that were open. 

''Three cheers for the Southern Confederacy!" yelled 
stentorian tones. 

Three-times-three roars of triumph deafened us. 

"Three cheers for Jefferson Davis— the savior of South- 
ern hberties!" shouted the fugleman. 

Again a burst of frenzied acclamation that made the 
windows rattle. 

I could see the leader of the riot — a big fellow who stood 
close to our window. He was bareheaded, and he rested 
one hand on the side of the car, swinging his hat with the 
other, far above his head. 

"Three groans for Carlisle!" 

Nothing else that has ever pained my ears has given 
me the impression of brute ferocity that stopped the beat- 
ing of my heart for one awful moment. 

From the mob went up a responsive bellow of execration 
and derision. 

"All aboard!" shouted conductor and trainmen. 

385 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The hoarse call and the shriek of the engine were wel- 
come music to the travellers. 

My husband's eyes met mine. 

''What Eric S. told us was then true," he said, without 
forming the words with his hps. "Virginia has joined her 
sisters. And the people have got hold of the news. Are 
they blind, not to see that their State wiU be the battle- 
ground, if war should be declared?" 

How dearly and for how long she was to pay for her 
bhndness, let the history of the next four years say ! 

Leaving the boat at Washington, we were conveyed by 
stages across the city to the Baltimore station. It was 
two o'clock in the spring morning, when we passed the 
Capitol. It was lighted from basement to roof, but, to 
passers-by, as still as a tomb. Nothing had brought home 
to us the fact and the imminence of the peril to our national 
existence, as did the sight of that hghted pile. For, as we 
had been informed, it was filled with armed men, on guard 
against surprise or open attack. On the train, we heard 
how troops had been hurried from all quarters of the still 
loyal States into Washington. The war was on! 

Full appreciation of what the Great Awakening was, and 
what it portended, came to us in Philadelphia. I had not 
known there was so much bunting on this side of the At- 
lantic as fluttered in the breeze in the city of staid homes 
and brotherly loves. It was a veritable bourgeoning of 
patriotism. From church - spires ; from shop- windows; 
from stately dwellings, and from the lowliest house in the 
meanest street — they 

"All uttered forth a glorious voice." 

Successful rebelhon seemed an impossibility in the face 
of the demonstration. 

Every village, town, and farm-house along the route 
proclaimed the same thing. So convinced were we that 

386 



"LAST THROUGH TRAIN FOR FOUR YEARS" 

the mere knowledge of the strength and unity of the North, 
East, and West would carry conviction to the minds of 
the led, and strike terror to the hearts of the leaders in the 
gigantic Treason, that we rallied marvellously the spirits 
which had flagged last night. 

The train ran into Newark at eight o'clock that evening. 
By the time it stopped, we had a ghmpse of famihar and 
anxious faces. We stepped off into the arms of four of 
our parishioners, all on the alert for the firet sight of the 
man of their hour. They received us as they might wel- 
come friends rescued from great and sore perils. 

Carriage and baggage-wagon were waiting. We were 
tucked into our seats tenderly, and with what would have 
been exaggerated solicitude in men less single of heart and 
motive. 

"But you knew that we would surely come back?" I 
said to Mr. Fanner, at the third repetition of his — "Thank 
Heaven you are here!" 

The quartette of heads wagged gravely. 

"We knew you would, if you could get here. But there 
is no telling what may not happen in these times." 

Their thanksgivings were echoed by ourselves, when, 
that very week, a Massachusetts regiment, en route for 
Washington, was assailed by a Baltimore mob, several 
killed and more wounded, and the railway tracks torn 
up, to prevent the progress of troops to the national 
capital. 

We laughed a httle, and were much moved to see a 
handsome flag projecting from a second-story window of 
our house, as we alighted at the door. It was a mute 
token of confidence in our loyalty. Smiles and softness 
chased each other when the proud cook, left in charge 
during our absence, related how the "beautiful supper," 
smoking hot, and redolent of aU manner of appetizing viands, 
was the gift of two neighbors, and that pantry and larder 

26 387 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

were "just packed full" of useful and dainty edibles, sent 
and brought by ladies who had forbidden her to tell their 
names. 

Thus began the four years of separation from my early 
home and those who had hallowed it for all time. That 
eventful journey was the dividing line between the Old 
Time and the New. With it, also dawned apprehension 
of the gracious deaUngs of the All-wise and All-merciful 
with us — His ignorant, and ofttimes captious, children. It 
would have been impossible for my husband, with his 
staunch principles of fidelity to the government, and un- 
compromising adherence to what he believed to be the 
right in the lamentable sectional strife, to remain in the 
seceding State. Dearly as he loved Virginia — and ro- 
mantic and tender as was his attachment to the brave old 
days that were to him the poetry of domestic and social 
life — he must have severed his connection with a parish 
in which he would have been accounted a "suspect." 
Before the storm broke, we were gently lifted out of the 
"nest among the oaks" and established, as tenderly, in the 
"pleasant places" the Father — not we — had chosen. 



XL 



DOMESTIC SORROWS AND NATIONAL STORM AND STRESS — 
FRIENDS, TRIED AND TRUE 

We were to need all the fulness of consolation that 
could be expressed from divine grace and human friend- 
ships, in the years immediately succeeding the events re- 
corded in the last chapter. 

The Muse of American History has set a bloody and fire- 
blackened cross against 1861. To us, it was darkened, 
through three-quarters of its weary length, by the shadows 
of graves. One death after another among the friends to 
whom we clung the more gratefully, because of the gulf — 
fast filling with blood — that parted us from kindred and 
early companions, followed our home-coming. In the last 
week of August, my husband recorded, in his pastor's note- 
book, that he had stood, in fourteen weeks, at the open 
graves of as many parishioners, among them some who 
had been most forward in welcoming him to his new field, 
and most faithful in their support of him in it. 

"It is literally walking in the valley of the shadow of 
death!" he sighed, closing the melancholy pages. "I ask 
myself trembhngly, after each funeral — Who next?" 

At noon on September second — the fifth anniversary of 
our wedding-day — our boy came home from a drive with his 
father, feverish and drowsy, and fell asleep in my arms. 
On the fourteenth of the same month, he was folded in an 
embrace, yet more fond and safe, beyond the touch of 
mortal sorrow. 

389 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

My bonnie, bonnie boy! who had never had a day's 
illness until he was stricken by that from which there was 
no recovery! Diphtheria was comparatively new at that 
time, even to the able physician who was our devoted 
personal friend. The boy faded before it, as a lily in 
drought. Four days before he left us, his baby sister was 
smitten by the same disease. Two days after the funeral, 
their father fell iU with it. Why neither Alice, I, nor the 
faithful nurse who assisted us in the care of the three 
patients, did not take the infection is a mystery. There 
were no quarantine regulations to prevent the spread of 
what is now recognized as one of the most virulent of 
epidemics. We took absolutely no precautions; friends 
flocked to us as freely as if there were no danger. Our 
fearlessness may have been a cathohcon. We nursed the 
sufferers back to health, and, looking to God for strength, 
took our places again in the ranks. 

Such a trite, every-day story as it is! To the soul for 
which the task is set, it is as novel and crucial as death 
itself. It is not the young mother who finds comfort and 
tonic in the inspired assurance: 

"For while we bear it, we can bear; 
Past that — we lay it down!" 

For four months, we had not a letter from Richmond. 
The cordon was drawn closely about the chief seat of the 
Rebelhon — now the capital of the Confederacy. It was 
hard to smuggle private letters through the lines. We 
wrote by every possible opportunity, and were certain 
that my family were as watchful of chances, likely and im- 
probable. At Christmas, we had a packet that had been 
run through by way of Kentucky, by a man who wrote to 
say that he had been ill in a Richmond hospital and re- 
ceived great kindness from my mother. When he was 
well enough to rejoin his regiment, he had offered to get 

390 



DOMESTIC SORROWS 

her letters to me, if it were in the power of man to do it. 
His plan, he said, was to entrust the parcel to a trusty 
negro, who would swim the Ohio River on horsebacli at a 
point where the stream was narrow, and post letters on 
the other side. If I should receive them, I might know 
that he had fulfilled his pledge to my mother. If I did not 
get them, I would never know how hard he had tried to 
keep his word. 

I have often wondered if he received the answers we 
dispatched to the post-office from which our precious 
letters were mailed. I never heard from him again. 

Home-bulletins brought the news of the death of my 
stern old grandmother at the advanced age of eighty-four. 
She had never given her sanction to the war, disapprov- 
ing of military operations with the whole might of her 
rugged nature. On a certain Sunday in June, news was 
brought by fast express, while the people were in church, 
that the war-vessel Pawnee was on its way up the river to 
bombard the town. Owing to the old lady's deafness, she 
did not fully comprehend why the services were closed 
summarily, and the streets were too full of people hurrjdng 
to and fro, for my father to explain the state of affairs on 
the way home. On the front steps they met my brother 
Horace in the uniform of the Richmond Howitzers, to 
which he belonged. They had been ordered summarily 
to repair to the point from which the expected attack was 
to be repelled. A few hasty sentences put her into pos- 
session of leading facts; the boy kissed her; shook hands 
with his father, and ran down the street. 

The old Massachusetts dame, whose father and husband 
had fought in the Revolutionary War, stood still and looked 
after him until he was out of sight. 

He was her favorite of the boys — we fancied because he 
resembled the Edwin she had wished to adopt, and who 
died in her arms. 

391 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The lad she followed with puzzled and griefful eyes was 
of a goodly presence, and never goodlier than in his uni- 
form. Did she bethink herself of the probability that she 
might never see him again? What she thought, and what 
she felt, will never be known. When my father addressed 
her, she gazed at him with uncomprehending eyes, turned, 
and walked feebly up the stairs. 

"I am afraid mother is not well," said my father to my 
mother, after they had talked a few minutes of the alarm 
and Horace's departure. "She looked shaken by the boy's 
going. Will you go up and look after her?" 

She had undressed and gone to bed. She had taken her 
seat in church that morning, a fine-looking dame of the old 
school; erect and strong; alert of wits and firm of pur- 
pose. My mother looked into the face of a shrunken, dull- 
eyed crone, who asked, in quavering accents, "Who she 
was, and what was her business?" Then she began to 
moan and beg to be taken "home." That was her cry, 
whenever she spoke at all, all summer long. But once did 
she quit her bed. That was when the nurse left her, as 
they supposed, sleeping, and discovered her half an hour 
later, fumbling at the lock of the front door, and in her 
nightgown. She "wanted to go home! she would go 
home!" She went on September 5th, while we, hundreds 
of miles away, were watching over our sick boy. 

"The war killed off most of our old people," said an ex- 
Confederate officer once to me. "Almost as many died 
of sheer brokenheartedness, as on the battle-field ! That's 
an account somebody has got to settle some day, if there is 
any justice in heaven." 

In the autumn of 1862, the state of my sister Alice's 
health demanded a change of climate so imperatively that 
we had no option in the consideration of the emergency. 
Her throat was seriously affected; she had not spoken 
above a whisper for six months. To keep her in Newark 

392 



DOMESTIC SORROWS 

for another winter was not to be thought of. Our parents 
were writing by every available flag of truce strenuous 
orders that she should "come home." In early October, 
Mr. Terhune took her down to an obscure village in Mary- 
land directly upon Chesapeake Bay. It was, in fact, a 
smugghng-station, from which merchandise of various sorts 
was ferried into Virginia, in direct violation of embargo 
laws. Southern sympathizers, whom loyahsts were be- 
ginning to brand as "Copperheads" — a name that stuck 
fast to them throughout the war — ran the enterprise and 
profited by it. Through one of these, information sifted 
to us of which we made use. When necessity drives, it will 
not do to be fastidious as to instruments that will save us. 

At dead of night my young sister was put into a 
boat, warmly wrapped from the river-fogs, and, in charge 
of a Richmond gentleman who was returning home, sent 
across the unlicensed ferry. Her father awaited her on 
the other shore. A mile above and a mile below, lurid 
gleams, like the eyes of river-monsters watching for their 
prey, showed where United States gunboats lay in mid- 
stream to intercept unlawful commerce and to arrest 
offenders. My husband did not impart to me the details 
of the adventure until we had heard of the child's restora- 
tion to her father's arms. Then he told of the fearful 
anxiety with which he waited on the Maryland shore, 
under starless skies, scanning the menacing lights up and 
down the river, and straining his ears for the ripple against 
the sides of the boat making its way, cautiously, with 
muffled oai-s, across the watery track. To deflect from the 
viewless course would be to awaken the sleeping dogs of 
war. The lonely watcher feared every minute to see from 
either of the gunboats a flash of fire, followed by the boom 
of a cannon, signalling the discovery of the attempt to 
evade the embargo. 

"The dreariest vigil imaginable!" he said. "I stayed 

393 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

there for two hours, until I was sure the boat must have 
made the landing. Had it been intercepted, I should have 
seen some change in the position of those red eyes and 
heard a shot." 

Before she embarked he had given the fugitive a self- 
addressed envelope enclosing a card, on which was written: 
"Arrived safely." She pencilled below — ''Alice," and sent 
it back by the boatman. It was a week old when he got it, 
and creased and soiled by much handling. 

Then fell silence, that was felt every waking hour, and 
lasted for four long months. On the first day of February, 
my husband being absent from home, I walked down to 
the city post-office with Mrs. Greenleaf, my eldest sister-in- 
law, who was visiting us, and took from our box a thin 
letter addressed in my mother's hand, and stamped "Fl\g 
OF Truce." 

It was but one page in length. Flag-of-truce communi- 
cations were limited to that. The first line branded itself 
upon my brain: 

"/ have written to you several times since our precious Alice's 
death!" 

She had ralhed finely in her native air, and was, appar- 
ently, on the highroad to health when smallpox broke out 
in Richmond military hospitals. It spread to the citizens. 
The town was crowded, and quarantine laws were lax. Dr. 
Haxall called and insisted that the entire family be re- 
vaccinated. He had his way with all save one. AJice 
put him off with a jest, and my mother bade him "call 
again, when she may be more reasonable." I fancy none 
of them put much faith in the honest physician's assertion 
that the precautionary measure was a necessity. In those 
days a *'good vaccination scar" was supposed to last a 
lifetime. My sister fell ill a fortnight afterward, and the 
seizure was pronounced to be "varioloid." 

394 



NATIONAL STORM AND STRESS 

A girl's wilful whim! A mother's indulgence! These 
may, or may not, have been the opening acts of the tragedy. 
God knows! 

Alice was in her twenty-second year, and in mind the 
most brilliant of the family. She was an ardent student 
for learning's sake, and an accomplished English scholar; 
wrote and spoke French fluently, and was proficient in 
the Latin classics. The one sketch from her pen ever 
published appeared in The Southern Literary Messenger 
while she was ill. It proved what we had known already, 
that her talent for composition was of a high order. Had 
she lived, the reading world would have ratified our 
judgment. 

On March 7th of that dark and bloody year, the low 
tide of hope with the nation, our home was brightened by 
the birth of a second daughter — our first brunette bairnie. 
Her brother and sister had the Terhune blue eyes and 
sunny hair. She came on a wild, snowy day, and brought 
such wealth of balm and blessing with her as seldom en- 
dows parents and home by reason of a single birth. From 
the hour of her advent. Baby AHce was her father's idol. 
Why, we could not say then. The fact — amusing at times 
— always patent — of the peculiar tenderness binding to- 
gether the hearts of the father and the girl-child — remained, 
and was gradually accepted, without comment, by us all. 

It was an unspeakable comfort to be able once more 
to talk of "the children." One never divines the depth 
of sweetness and significance in the term until one has 
been robbed of the right to use it, through months of 
missing what has been. 

Other, if minor, distractions from personal sorrow and 
public solicitudes were not wanting that year. I had been 
drawn into charitable organizations born of the times. 
Our noble church was forward in co-operation with muni- 
cipal and State authorities in relieving the distress of the 

395 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

thousands who were reduced to poverty by the loss of 
the Southern trade and the stagnation of home industries. 
Prices went up, and wages went down; soldiers' widows 
and orphans must be cared for; the soldiers in camps and 
hospitals were but ill-provided with the comforts they 
had a right to expect from the government and their 
fellow-citizens. We had Soldiers' Relief Societies, and 
Auxiliary Societies to the Sanitary and Christian Com- 
missions, and by-and-by, as the monetary situation told 
fiercely upon the women and children of unemployed 
operatives, associations that supplied their wives with 
sewing. 

But for active participation in each of these benevolent 
organizations, I do not see how I could have kept my rea- 
son while the fratricidal conflict gathered force and heat. 

My situation was peculiar, and, among my daily asso- 
ciates, unique. Loving the Union with a passion of pa- 
triotism inconceivable by those who have never had what 
they call by that name put to such test of rack and flame 
as the martyrs of old endured, I yet had no personal 
interest in one soldier who fought for the Cause as dear 
to me as hfe itself. My prayers and hopes went out to 
the Federal army as a glorious engine, consecrated to a 
sublime and holy purpose — even the salvation of the 
nation by the preservation of the Union. And all the 
while, my best-beloved brother was in the fiercest of the 
fight down there, in the State dearer to me than any other 
could ever be. Cousins by the score, and friends and 
valued acquaintances by the hundred, were with Lee and 
Jackson, Early, Stuart, and Hill, exposed to shot and shell 
and sword. My brother Herbert had gone home in '61, 
after he was graduated from the Theological Seminary in 
New Brunswick, and received a license to preach. 

Shortly after his installation in a country parish, he 
had married a girl he had fallen in love with while studying 

396 



FRIENDS, TRIED AND TRUE 

with my husband in Charlotte. Although a non-com- 
batant, he might be forced by circumstances to take up 
arms, as many of the profession were doing. His home 
was raided more than once by predatory bands of strag- 
glers from the Federal army, and twice by cavalry dashes 
under leaders whose names were a terror throughout 
southern and central Virginia. My brother Percy, at 
fourteen, enhsted, and quickly gained reputation as a 
courier under Lee's own eye, being a daring rider, court- 
ing, instead of shunning, danger, and, hke his father and 
brothers, an utter stranger to physical fear in any shape 
whatsoever. 

When — as happened almost daily — our papers pubhshed 
lists of the killed and wounded in Lee's army, my hand 
shook so violently in holding the sheet, that I had to lay 
it on the table to steady the hues into legibihty, my heart 
rolhng over with sick thuds, while my eyes ran down the 
hne of names. Add to this ceaseless horror of suspense 
the long, awful spaces of silence between the fiag-of-truce 
letters — and is it to be wondered at that I plunged into 
routine work — domestic, hterary, religious, charitable, 
and patriotic — with feverish energy, as the only hope of 
maintaining a tolerable degree of sanity? 

And how good "our people" were to me through it all! 
The simple act of setting the flag above our door-steps 
when we returned from Rebeldom, was emblematic of the 
position taken and held by them, as a body, during that 
trial-period. They trusted us without reservation. More- 
over, never, howsoever high might run the tide of popular 
feehng at the tidings of defeat or \dctory to the national 
Cause, was one of them ever betrayed into a word of 
vituperation of my native South, or ungenerous exultation 
over her downfall. The tact and dehcacy in this respect 
displayed by them, without an exception, deserves higher 
praise than I can award in this humble chronicle. 

397 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Loving loyalty of this type was a panoply and a stimu- 
lant to my sorely-taxed spirit. Sheer gratitude should 
have bound me to them as a co-worker. 

When men like Peter and John Ballantine — than whom 
God never made a nobler pair of brothers — and Edgar 
Farmer — all the busiest of men — would go out of their 
way, in business hours, to make a special call upon me, 
after the news of a battle had set the town on fire with 
excitement, to "hope," in brotherly solicitude, that ''this 
does not mean a heartache for you?" — when the safety 
of my brothers, and the welfare of my parents, was the sub- 
ject of affectionate inquiry, whenever we met friend or 
acquaintance connected with church or parish, I used to 
say to my husband and myself, that the world had never 
seen more truly chivalrous natures than those of these 
practical Middle States men, who never thought of them- 
selves as knightly. 



XLI 

FORT DELAWARE — "OLD GLORY" — LINCOLN'S ASSASSINA- 
TION — THE RELEASED PRISONER OF WAR 

In the last week of May, 1864, I had a letter from my 
brother Horace, now a Lieutenant in the Richmond 
Howitzers, C.S.A. 

It bore the heading: " Under the walls of Fort Delaware/' 
and was scribbled upon the deck of a United States trans- 
port. 

With the gay courage that was his characteristic, and 
without waste of words in preliminaries, directness in 
action and speech being another prominent trait with him, 
he informed me that "General Hancock, by making an 
ungenerously early start at Spottsylvania Court-House — 
before breakfast, in fact — on the morning of May 21st, 
captured part of our division." 

The letter wound up with: "We are now approaching 
Fort Delaware, which is, we are told, our destination. 
I am well. Don't take this to heart. I don't!" 

I was so far from taking it to heart that I called upon 
my soul, and all that was within me, to return thanks to 
Him who had delivered my darling boy from the battle 
that was against him. He was now out of the reach of 
bullet and bayonet. 

If I did not summon neighbors and friends to rejoice 
with me over my brother's capture, the news spread fast, 
and congratulatory calls were the order of the next few 
days. Not satisfied with words of good-will, every bit of 

399 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

political machinery at the command of our friends was 
put in motion to secure for me the great joy of visiting 
him. 

One of these plans so nearly succeeded that I went, 
under the escort of the plotter, as far as Delaware City, 
within sight of the gloomy fortress, to be turned back by 
a new order — incited by a rumored attempt at escape of 
the prisoners — prohibiting any \dsitors from entering the 
fort. 

In the tranquil assurance of the captive s security from 
the chances of war, I bore up under the failure better 
than could have been expected, solacing myself by writ- 
ing, regularly, long letters, and the preparation of boxes of 
books and provisions, which I was allowed to forward 
weekly. It was "almost as good," I wrote to him, glee- 
fully, '*as having a son at school, for whom I could get up 
boxes of goodies." 

Twice I had direct inteUigence of him from army officers, 
who sought him out and talked to him of us. 

One wrote: "Fine-looking fellow — hearty as a buck! 
In good heart, and in good looks." Another: "Never met 
a nicer fellow. I wish he had been on our side!" 

While I was comforting myself with these mitigating in- 
cidents, the line of communication was abruptly severed 
by the transfer of prisoners from Fort Delaware to Hilton, 
South Carolina. I had no letter for a month, and began 
to think — I might say, to fear — that an exchange of pris- 
oners had returned him to Virginia, He gave the reason 
for his silence finally: 

"In pursuance of the retaliatory policy determined upon by 

the Federal authorities, we were brought here and placed, for 

three weeks, under the fire of our own guns from the shore. 

Our fare was pickles and corn-meal, for the same time. I did 

not write while this state of things prevailed. It would have 

distressed you uselessly." 

400 



FORT DELAWARE 

He went on to say that the order of retahation for the 
cruelties inflicted upon Federal captives in Confederate 
prisons, had been rescinded. The Confederates, now at 
Hilton Head, could hardly be said to be lodged luxuriously ; 
but they were no longer animated targets. 

Through the intercession of a friend with Gen. Stewart 
L. Woodford, then in command in South CaroHna, I gained 
permission to supply my brother with "plain clothing, 
books, papers, food, and small sums of money." The 
latter went to him by the kind and safe hand of Richard 
Ryerson, a young Jerseyman, holding office in the Com- 
missary Department at Hilton Head. My letters were 
forwarded under cover to the same generous intermediary. 

Thus was another crooked way made straight. 

The news of the evacuation; of my brother's removal 
back to Fort Delaware, and a letter from my father, sent 
by private hand to Mr. Terhune, came simultaneously. 
My husband had had a verbal message through a trusty 
"refugee," as long ago as January, to the efit'ect that the 
fall of the city could not, in my father's judgment, be long 
delayed. Since confiscation was sure to follow the col- 
lapse of the Confederacy, he instructed my husband to 
repair to Richmond, at the earhest possible moment after 
the way was cut open by the victorious army, and claim 
the family estate in the name of his wife, our loyalty being 
unquestionable. 

In the light of what really happened when the city was 
occupied by the invaders, the precaution seems absurdly 
useless. Then, it was prudent in the estimation of those 
best acquainted with the current of public affairs. Every 
dollar belonging, in fact, or constructively, to Northern 
citizens, that the Confederate authorities could reach, had 
been confiscated early in the action. My husband was a 
non-combatant in the eye of the law, by reason of his pro- 
fession. Yet the few thousands we had invested in vari- 

401 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ous ways in Virginia had gone the way of all the rest. 
It was but fair to suppose that the rebels would be stripped 
of houses, lands, and money. 

On New- Year's day, we had a call from Dr. J. J. Craven, 
Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac, a warm per- 
sonal friend of Mr. Terhune. He was stationed at Fort 
Monroe, the key to the James River. Him, my husband 
took into confidence, and it was arranged between them 
that the latter was to be notified of the practicability of 
entering the city in the track of the troops, when the in- 
evitable hour should arrive. 

On one and the same day in April, Mr. Terhune had a 
telegram from Fort Monroe, containing three words: "Come 
at once," and I a letter from my faithful ally, Ossian Ash- 
ley, enclosing an introductory note from General Butter- 
field to the Commandant at Fort Delaware, requesting him 
to permit me to see my brother. 

Mr. Farmer, my husband's companion in many expedi- 
tions and journeyings, consented gladly to go with him 
now. We three left next morning for Philadelphia, and 
the two gentlemen accompanied me in the afternoon to 
Fort Delaware. 

We were courteously received by the officials, the Com- 
mandant voluntarily relaxing the rules at our parting, to 
let my brother walk across the drawbridge and down to 
the wharf with me. High good-hmnor reigned in all 
branches of the service. The war was virtually over. 
As we sailed out into the bay, and I threw a last salute to 
the soldierly figure standing on the pier, it was with a 
bound of hope at my heart to which it had been long a 
stranger. "My boy" would join us in our home before 
many days. He had never been a rebel, indeed; he had 
gone reluctantly into the service, as had thousands of others. 
The chance to take the oath of allegiance to the Federal 
government would be readily embraced by him and his 

402 



''OLD GLORY"— LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION 

comrades. And my husband had engaged to see to it 
that the opportunity should not be long delayed. We 
parted in Philadelphia, I passing the night with friends 
there, the two men going on to Fort Monroe. By Doctor 
Craven's kindly management, they found a transport 
awaiting their arrival. They were, thus, the first civil- 
ians to enter Richmond after the miUtary took pos- 
session. 

A hasty note from Fort Monroe apprised me of the suc- 
cess of the expedition, up to that point. Beyond that 
place there were no postal or telegraphic facihties. I must 
wait patiently until they touched Old Point on the return 
journey. 

With a thankful spirit and busy hands, I fell to work, 
making ready for the home-coming of husband and brother. 
It was as if the world and the house were swept and gar- 
nished together. 

In the early dawn of April loth, too happily excited to 
sleep, I arose and looked from my dressing-room window 
over intervening buildings and streets, to the spire of Old 
Trinity Church. 

Church's picture, Our Banner in the Sky, was painted 
during the Rebellion, and every print-shop window dis- 
played a copy of it. Some of my older readers may rec- 
ollect it. A tall, and at the summit, leafless, pine stood 
up, stark and gaunt, against a sky barred with crimson-and- 
white. Above, a cluster of stars glimmered faintly in the 
dusky blue. It was a weird "impressionist" picture, that 
fired the imagination and thrilled the heart of the lover of 
our glorious Union. 

From my window, I saw it now in fulness of detail. I 
had heard the story of "Old Glory," a Httle while before. 
The words leaped from my hps at the sight of the splendid 
flag on the staff towering from the church-spire. Straight 
and strong, it streamed over the sleeping city in the fresh 
27 403 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

breeze from the sea, emblem of the triumphant right — of a 
saved nation! 

"Old Glory!" I cried aloud, and fell upon my knees to 
thank God for what it meant. 

Had another woman in the land — now, more than ever 
and forever, "God's Country" — such cause as I to return 
thanks for what had been in the last month? 

The glow of exultation still warmed my inmost being, 
when I halted on the upper stair on my way down to 
breakfast. Hearing a ring at the door-bell, with the 
thought of a telegram, as probable explanation of the 
untimely call, I leaned breathlessly over the balustrade 
as the maid opened the door. 

It was a parishioner, and a neighbor. He spoke hur- 
riedly : 

"Will you say to Mrs. Terhune that the President was 
assassinated in Ford's Theatre in Washington last night?" 

When, hours and hours afterward, I looked, with eyes 
dimmed by weeping, upon "Old Glory," it hung hmp at 
half-mast, and the background was dull with rain-clouds. 

I had many visitors that day. My nearest neighbor, 
and, to this hour, one of my closest friends, ran in to "see 
how I was bearing it. I must not get overexcited !" Then 
she broke down, and wept stormily, as for a murdered 
father. 

"We never knew how we loved him until now!" she 
sobbed. 

That was the cry of every torn heart. At last, we knew 
the patient, tender-hearted, magnificent patriot-hero for 
what he was — the second Father of his Country. At least 
a dozen men dropped in to "talk over" the bereavement. 
One, as rugged of feature and as soft of heart as our 
martyred head, said, huskily, holding my hand in our 
" good-bye " : 

"Somehow, it does me good to hear you talk, in your 

404 



THE RELEASED PRISONER OF WAR 

Southern accent, of our common grief, I can't exactly ex- 
press what it means to me. Words come hard to-day. 
But it may be a sign that this awful sorrow may, in God's 
hands, be the means of bringing us brothers together again. 
He always felt kindly toward them. Some day, they may 
be brought to see that they have lost their best friend. 
God knows!" 

I thank Him that, in the fulness of time, the old man's 
hope has been fulfilled. 

My husband brought home with him my youngest sis- 
ter, Myrtle. 

One of the incongruities that strike oddly across our 
moments of intensest emotion was, that, in the excite- 
ment of welcome and surprise (for I had had no intima- 
tion of her coming), I bethought myself that I had never 
known, until I heard her call my name, that girls' voices 
change as boys' do, in passing from childhood into youth. 
I left her a little girl in short dresses. In four years she 
had passed the delta 

"Where the brook and river meet." 

Girls and boys matured fast under the influences that 
had ripened her character. 

It was a rare and lovely product which linked itself 
into the chain of my life, for the score of years beyond our 
reunion. To say that her companionship was a comfort 
and joy unspeakable, that summer, would be to describe 
feebly what her coming brought into my existence. The 
burden of solicitudes and suspense, of actual bereavement 
and dreads of the morrow's happenings, slid from my 
shoulders, as Christian's pack from him at the Cross. I 
grew young again. 

My third baby-girl, Virginia Belle, was ten days old 
when my liberated brother was added, like a beautiful 
clasp, to the golden circle of our reunited family. He 

405 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

came directly to us, and lingered longer than I had dared 
expect, for recuperation, and for enjoyment of the society 
from which he had been so long exiled. 

A pretty love-story, the initial chapters of which had 
been rudely broken into by the war, was resumed and 
continued at this visit. That the girl-friend who had 
grown into a sister's place in our home and affections, 
should marry my dearest brother, was a dream too fair 
of complexion and too symmetrical in proportions, to be 
indulged under conditions that had prevailed since his 
visit to Newark, almost five years ago. Yet this was the 
vision that began to define itself into a blessed reality, by 
the time the soldier - returned - from - the - war packed the 
outfit of civilized and civilian clothing — the getting-to- 
gether of which had been one ostensible excuse for ex- 
tending the visit — and took his way southward. 

It was a divine breathing-spell for us and for the country 
— that summer of peace and plenty. 

For three years past, we had spent each July and August 
in a roomy farm-house among the Jersey hills. For the 
first season, we were the only boarders. Then, perhaps 
because we boasted somewhat too freely of the healthful- 
ness of the region, and the excellent country fare set be- 
fore us by good Mrs. Blauvelt, the retreat from malaria 
and mosquitoes became too popular for our comfort. 
When there were three babies, a nurse, a visiting sister, 
our two selves, and a horse, to be accommodated, we found 
the once ample quarters too strait for us. 

For baby Belle's sake we migrated late in June of 
this year. We were discussing the seriousness of the 
problem consequent upon a growing family, as we drove 
up a long hill, one July day, Ahce on a cricket between us 
in the foot of the buggy, when an exclamation from my 
husband stopped a sentence in the middle. He drew the 
horse to a sudden halt. 

406 



THE RELEASED PRISONER OF WAR 

Woodmen were busy with destructive axes upon a body 
of native trees at the left of our road. They had opened 
to our sight a view heretofore hidden by the wood. A 
lake, blue and tranquil as the heavens it mirrored; green 
slopes, running down to the water; wooded heights, bor- 
dering the thither banks, and around, as far as the eye 
could reach, mountains, benignant in outhne and verdant 
to their summits, billowing, range beyond range, against 
the horizon — why had we never seen this before? It was 
like a section of the Delectable Mountains, gently lowered 
from Bunyan's Bculah Land, and set down within thirty 
miles of the biggest city in America. 

The rapt silence was ended by one word from my com- 
panion : 

"Alabama!" 

He passed the reins into my hands, and leaped over the 
wheel. Making his way down the hill, he stopped to talk 
with the workmen for ten minutes. Then he came back, 
held up a hand to help me out of the carriage, and lifted 
"Brownie" in his arms. Next, he tied the horse to a 
tree, and, saying to me — "Come!" led the way to the 
lake. 

We bought the tract, in imagination, and decided upon 
the site of our cottage, in the next half-hour. On the way 
home we called upon the owner of the tract, paid a hun- 
dred dollars down to bind the bargain, and left orders 
that not another tree was to be felled until further notice. 

It would have been expecting too much of human nature 
had we been required to go back to the farm-house dinner, 
without driving again by "Our Land." The happy si- 
lence of the second survey culminated in my declaration 
and the instant assent of my companion to the same: 

"And we will name it ' Sunnybank'l" 



XLII 

A CHRISTMAS REUNION — A MIDNIGHT WARNING — HOW A 
GOOD MAN CAME TO "THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HIS LIFE" 

"Skies bright, and brightening!" was the clan watch- 
word, in passing along the summons for a rally in the old 
home at Christmas-time, 1866, that should include three 
generations of the name and blood. 

On Sunday, December 23d, we attended church in a 
body, in morning and afternoon. Not one was missing 
from the band except my brother Herbert, whose pro- 
fessional duties detained him over Sunday. He was 
pledged to be with us early on Monday morning. 

That evening, we grouped about the fire in the par- 
lor, a wide circle that left room for the babyest of 
the party to disport themselves upon the rug, in the 
glow of the grate piled with cannel coal. My father, en- 
tering last of all, stooped to pick up a granddaughter and 
kiss her, in remarking: 

"I had intended to go down to hear Doctor Moore to- 
night. I am very fond of him as man and preacher. 
But" — a comprehensive glance around the mom, pointing 
the demurrer — "you look so comfortable here that I am 
tempted to change my mind." 

A chorus of entreaties broke forth. It had been so long 
since we had had — "all of us together — a Sunday evening 
at home; there was so much to talk of; Christmas was so 
near; the night was damp and raw; there would be snow 
by ten o'clock," etc. — all in a breath, until the dear man 

408 



A CHRISTMAS REUNION 

put his hands to his ears, ready to promise anylihing and 
everything, for the sake of peace. 

This was before supper, a jolly meal, over which we 
lingered until the mothers of the company had to hustle 
the younglings off to bed by the time we left the table. 

Returning to the drawing-room after hearing my girls' 
prayers, and assuaging their impatience at the lagging 
flight of time, by telling them that, in twenty-two hours 
more, they would be hanging up their stockings, I found 
my father alone. He stood on the rug, looking down into 
the scarlet depths of the coals, his hands behind him and 
his head bent — in thought, not in sadness, for he turned 
a bright face to me as my voice awoke him from his 
re very : 

"'A penny for your thoughts!'" 

I said it gayly, laying my hand on his shoulder. He 
turned his cheek to meet it. 

"My thoughts were running upon what has kept them 
busy all day. I suppose I ought to be ashamed to con- 
fess it, but I lost one 'head' of Doctor Hoge's sermon this 
afternoon. I was thinking of — my children T 

His voice sank into a tender cadence it seldom took. 
He was reckoned an undemonstrative man, and he had 
a full strain of the New England Puritan in his blood. 

I waited to steady my own voice before asking, softly, 
"And what of them, father?" 

The query was never answered. The opening door let 
in a stream of happy humanity — mother, brothers, and 
sisters— Mea and her husband, Horace and Percy, Myrtle 
and her fiance, "Will" Robertson, who would, ere long, be 
one of us in fact, as he was now in heart. They were full 
of Christmas plans and talk. Among other items one was 
fixed in my memory by subsequent events. In conse- 
quence of the intervention of Sunday, the business of 
decorating the house had to be postponed until Monday. 

409 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The evergreens were to be sent in from the country early 
on the morrow. Percy reported that the snow had begun 
to fall. If the roads were heavy by morning, would the 
countryman who had promised a liberal store of running 
cedar, pine, and juniper, in addition to the Christmas-tree, 
keep his word? 

"I will see that the evergreens are provided," my father 
laid the disquiet by saying. "There will be no harm in 
engaging a double supply." 

Then Mea went to the piano, and we had the olden-time 
Sunday-evening concert, all the dear old hymns we could 
recall, among them two called for by our father: 



"God moves in a mysterious way," 



and. 



"There is an hour of peaceful rest, 
To weary wanderers given; 
There is a joy for souls distressed, 
A balm for every wounded breast, — 
Tis found alone in Heaven!" 

We sang, last of all. The Shining Shore, and talked of the 
time when the composer set the MS. upon the piano-rack, 
with the ink hardly dried upon the score, and trial was 
made of the music in that very room — could it be just eleven 
years ago? 

My father left us as the clock struck ten. My mother 
lingered half an hour later. We all knew, although none 
of us spoke of it, that he liked to have a little time for 
devotional reading on Sunday evening, before he went to 
bed. He had not demitted the habit in fifty-odd years, 
yet I doubt if he had ever mentioned, even to his wife, 
why he kept it up and what it meant to him. 

Our mother told me afterward that when she joined 
him in their chamber, the Bible was still open on the stand 

410 



A CHRISTMAS REUNION 

before him. He closed it at her entrance and glanced 
around, a smile of serene happiness lighting up his face. 

"We have had a delightful Sunday!" he observed. "It 
is Hke renewing my youth to have all the children about 
us once more." 

He had had his breakfast and gone down-town, when 
we came into the dining-room next morning. At my ex- 
clamation of regretful surprise, our mother told us how 
he had hurried the meal for himself, pleading that he had 
much to attend to that forenoon. The snow was not deep, 
but it was sodden by the fine rain that had succeeded it 
toward the dawn of the gray December day, and he feared 
the evergreens might not be forthcoming. 

"I shall send a couple of carts into the country at 
once," were his parting words. "I would not have the 
children disappointed for ten times the worth of the 
evergreens." 

It was to be a busy morning with us all. As soon as 
breakfast was dispatched, the long table — pulled out to 
its utmost limit to accommodate the tribe — was cleared 
of dishes, plates, and cloth, and we fell to tying up parcels 
for the tree, sorting bonbons, and other light tasks. Mince- 
pies, concocted according to the incomparable recipe 
handed down from mother to daughter, in the Montrose 
and Olney families, for a century-and-a-half, had been 
baked last week, and loaded the pantry-shelves. My 
mother's unsurpassable crullers, superintended by herself 
at Christmas, and at no other season, were packed away 
in stone jars; and, that no distinctive feature of Yuletide 
might be missing from the morrow's dinner, the whitest, 
plumpest, tenderest sucking pig the market could offer, lay 
at length in a platter in the store-room. Before he could go 
into the oven, he would be buttered from nose to toes, 
and coated with bread-crumbs. When he appeared on 
the table, he would be adorned with a necklace of sausages, 

411 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

cranberries would fill out the sunken eyes, and a lemon be 
thrust into his mouth. A mammoth gobbler, fattened 
for the occasion, would support him at the other end of 
the board. 

I had offered last Friday to make pumpkin-pies — the 
genuine New England brand, such as my father had eaten 
at Thanksgiving in the Dorchester homestead. 

The colored cooks could not compass the delicacy. He 
had sent home four bouncing pumpkins on Saturday, and 
two had been pared, eviscerated, and stewed. I sat at the 
far end of the table, beating, seasoning, and tasting. My 
mother was filhng candy-bags at the other, when Myrtle 
rallied her upon not tasting the confectionery, of which 
she was extravagantly fond. 

"Mother is saving up her appetite for the Christmas 
pig!" she asserted. 

"I never eat sweets when I have a headache," was the 
answer. "I did not sleep well last night." 

This led to her account of a "queer fright" she had 
had at midnight, or thereabouts. Awakened from her first 
sound sleep by the unaccountable thrill of alarm each of 
us has felt, in the impression that some one or something 
that has no right to be there, is in the darkened chamber, 
she lay still with beating heart and listened for further 
proof of the intrusion. In a few minutes she heard a faint 
rustle that ran from the farthest window toward her bed, 
and passed to the door leading into the hall. Thoroughly 
startled, she shook my father's shoulder and whispered to 
him that there was some one in the room. He sprang up, 
lighted the gas, and made a thorough search of the cham- 
ber and the dressing-room. The door was locked, and, 
besides themselves, there was no occupant of the apart- 
ment. He had fallen asleep again, when she heard the 
same rustling noise, louder and more definite than before. 
There was no mistaking the direction of the movement. 

412 



A MIDNIGHT WARNING 

It began at the window, swept by the bed, and was lost 
at the door. The terrified wife again awoke her husband, 
and he made the round a second time, with the same result 
as before. 

When the mysterious movement seemed to brush her 
at the third coming, she aroused her companion in an agony 
of nervousness: 

''I am terribly ashamed of my foolishness," she told him, 
shivering with nameless fears; ''but there really is some- 
thing here, now!" He was, as I have said in a former part 
of my true story, usually so intolerant of nervous whimsies 
that we forbore to express them in his hearing. He had 
mellowed and sweetened marvellously within the last few 
years, as rare vintages are sure to ripen. Arising now, 
with a good-humored laugh, he made a third exploration 
of the premises, and with no better result. When he lay 
down again, he put his hand affectionately upon my moth- 
er's arm with a soothing word: 

"I will hold you fast! You are the most precious thing 
in the house. Neither burglar nor bogie shall get you." 

"What was it?" we asked. 

"Oh, probably the wind blowing the shade, or making 
free with something else that was loose. It was a stormy 
night. We agreed, this morning, that it must have been 
that." 

She spoke carelessly, and we took the incident as little 
to heart. Passing through the hall, awhile later, I espied 
my maid Ellen, who had lived with me for five years, 
whispering with a mulatto woman in a corner. They fell 
apart at seeing me, and Ellen followed me to the sitting- 
room. 

"Rhoda was saying that the colored people think what 
happened last night was a warnin'," she observed, with 
affected lightness. "They are awful superstitious, ma'am, 
ain't they?" 

413 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

"Very superstitious and very ignorant!" I returned, se- 
verely. 

The trifling episode was gone, like a vapor passing from 
a mirror, before my brother Herbert appeared. He had 
arisen at daybreak, driven to Petersburg, and taken there 
the train to Richmond, arriving by nine o'clock. 

At the same hour our father reached his office. I have 
heard the story of his walk down-town so minutely de- 
scribed that I can trace each step. It was more than a 
mile from his house to the office. There were no street- 
cars or omnibuses in the city, at that time. Sometimes 
he drove to his place of business; sometimes he rode on 
horseback. Generally, he chose to walk. He was a fine 
horseman and a fearless driver, from his youth up. At 
sixty-eight he carried himself as erect as at thirty, and 
made less of tramping miles in all weathers than men of 
half his age thought of pacing a dozen squares on a sunny 
day. As he had reminded his wife, in excusing his hurried 
breakfast, there were errands, many and important, to be 
looked after. He stopped at Pizzini's, the noted con- 
fectioner of the town, to interview that dignitary in per- 
son, anent a cake of noble proportions and brave with 
ornate icing — Christmas fruit-cake — of Pizzini's own com- 
position, for which the order was given a week ago. To 
the man of sweets he said that nothing must hinder the 
delivery of the cake beyond that evening. 

"We are planning a royal, old-fashioned family Christ- 
mas," he subjoined, "and there must be no disappoint- 
ments." 

The evergreens were ordered as stringently. Two cart- 
loads, as he had said, and two more Christmas-trees, in 
case one was not satisfactory. "There must be no dis- 
appointments." 

Not far from Pizzini's he met Doctor Haxall, also 
"Christmasing." The two silver-haired men shook hands, 

414 



"THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HIS LIFE" 

standing in the damp snow on the corner, and exchanged 
the compliments of the season. 

"What has come to you?" queried the doctor, eying 
his friend curiously. "You are renewing your youth. 
You have the color, the step, and the eyes of a boy!" 

"Doctor!" letting his hand drop upon the other's shoul- 
der, " to-morrow will be the happiest day of my Hfe ! After 
four terrible years of war and separation, I am to have in 
the old home all my children and grandchildren — a united 
and loving family. It will be the first time in eight years ! 
My cup runneth over!" 

He strode into his office with the springing step that 
had brought him all the long mile and a half; spoke cheer- 
ily to two or three employees who were on hand ; remarked 
upon the weather, and his confidence that we would have 
a fine day to-morrow, and laid aside his overcoat and hat. 
Then he stepped to the outer door to issue an order to 
two colored men standing there, began to speak, put his 
hand to his head, and fell forward. The men caught him, 
saved him from falling, and supported him to a chair. 
He pointed to the door, and spoke one word: 

"Horace!" 

My brother was his partner in business, and he could 
not be far away. The messenger met him within a short 
distance of the door. The dulling eyes brightened at sight 
of him; with an inarticulate murmur, the stricken man 
raised his hand to his head, to indicate the seat of pain, 
leaned back upon the strong young arms that held him, 
and closed his eyes. 

He was still breathing when they brought him home. 
Doctor Haxall had galloped on ahead of the carriage 
containing him and the attendants, to prepare us meas- 
urably for what was coming. The unconscious master of 
the home was brought through the hall between banks 
of evergreens, dehvered in obedience to his order issued 

415 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

but three hours earlier. Two tall Christmas-trees and three 
wagon-loads of running cedar, pine, and spruce heaped 
the floor, and were pushed aside hastily by the servants to 
make way for the mournful procession. 

He did not speak or move after they laid him upon his 
own bed. 

One more hour of anguished waiting, and we knew that 
he had entered upon the "happiest day of his Ufe." 



XLIII 

TWO BRIDALS — A BIRTH AND A PASSING — "mY LITTLE LOVE" 
— "drifting out" — A NONPAREIL PARISH 

In October, 1867, I had the great happiness of seeing 
my favorite brother married to the woman he had loved 
SO long and so faithfully that the marriage was the fitting 
and only sequel the romance of the Civil War could have. 
From the day of our coming to Newark, she, who was now 
my sister, then a school-girl, had established herself in our 
hearts. She was my sister Alice's most intimate friend, and, 
after Alice left us, gHded into the vacant place naturally. 
With the delicacy and discretion characteristic of a fine 
and noble nature, she never, during those dreary years 
of separation and silence, alluded, in her talks with me, 
to the tacit "understanding" existing between herself and 
my brother. When he visited us immediately upon his 
liberation from Fort Delaware, it was evident that both 
of the unacknowledged lovers took up the association 
where it had been severed four years ago. 

They were wedded on October 5th. The next day Mr. 
(now "Doctor") Terhune, the three little girls, and my- 
self, with their nurse, took the train for Richmond to as- 
sist in the preparations for the marriage of Myrtle and 
"Will" Robertson. The newly wedded pair returned 
from their bridal tour in season to witness the second 
marriage, on October 17th. 

On February 4, 1869, my little Myrtle opened her 
beautiful eyes upon the world in which she was to have 

417 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

an abiding-place for so short a time that the fast, bright 
months of her sojourn are as a dream to me at this distance 
from that spring and summer. She was a splendid baby, 
finely developed, perfect in feature, as in form, and grew 
so rapidly in size and strength that my fashionable friends 
pointed to her as a hvely refutation of my theory that 
''bottle babies" were never so strong as those who had 
their natural nourishment. A tedious spell of intermittent 
fever that laid hold of me, when she was but two months 
old, deprived her of her rightful nutriment. When she 
was four months old, we removed for the summer to 
Sunnybank, and set aside one cow expressly for her use. 
She throve gloriously until, in September, dentition sapped 
her vitality, and, as I had dreaded might ensue upon the 
system of artificial feeding, none of the various substitutes 
for nature's own provision for the young of the human 
race, were assimilated by the digestive organs. On the 
last day of the month she passed into safer hands than 
ours. 

I have told the story of our Alice's wonderful fife in My 
Little Love. Now that my mind and nerves have regained 
a more healthful tone than they could claim during the 
months when I found a sad solace in the portraiture of our 
lost darling, I cannot trust myself to dwell at length upon 
the rich endowments of mind and heart that made the 
ten-year-old girl the idol of her home, and a favorite with 
playmates and acquaintances. Although thirty-five years 
have set that beautiful life among the things of a former 
generation, I still meet those who recollect and speak of 
her as one might of a round and perfect star. 

We, her parents, knew her for what she was, while she 
was spared to glorify our home. Once and again, we 
congratulated ourselves that we comprehended the value 
of our treasure while we held it — did not wait for the bright- 

418 



A BIRTH AND A PASSING 

ening of the fleeting blessing. When He who bestowed 
the good and perfect gift recalled her to Himself, we 
thanked Him, from the sincere depths of broken hearts, 
that He had deemed us worthy to keep it for Him for 
almost eleven years. 

She went from us January 1, 1874. 

By the time the spring opened, repeated hemorrhages 
from lungs I had been vain enough to beUeve were ex- 
ceptionally strong, had reduced me to a pitiable state of 
weakness. 

If I have not spoken, at every stage of the narrative of 
these late years, of the unutterable goodness of Newark 
friends and parishioners, it is not that this had abated 
in degree, or weakened in quahty. In all our afflictions 
they bore the part of comforters to whom our losses were 
theirs. Strong arms and hearts in our hours of weakness 
were ever at our call. When it became apparent that my 
health was seriously impaired, the "people," with one voice, 
insisted that Doctor Terhune should take a vacation of 
uncertain length, and go with me to the Adirondacks for 
as long a time as might be needed to restore me to health 
and vigor. 

I had worked hard for the past five or six years. Be- 
sides my literary engagements, which were many, includ- 
ing the arrangement of material for, and publication of. 
Common Sense in the Household, I was deep in church and 
charitable work, and had a large visiting-list. Little ac- 
count was made, at that date, of nervous prostration. I 
should have laughed that little to scorn had it been in- 
timated by physician or friend that I was a victim to the 
disorder. I know now, to a certainty, that I was so near 
the "verge" that a touch would have toppled me over. 
My very ignorance of the peril may have saved me from 
the fall. 

We were four months in the Adirondacks. Except that 

28 419 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the sore lungs drew in the resinous airs more freely than 
they had taken in the fog-laden salt air of the lowlands, 
and that I slept better, I could not discern any improve- 
ment in my condition when the shortening and cooling 
days called us southward. 

In July, a telegram from Richmond had informed me of 
my mother's death. So battered and worn was I that 
the full import of the tidings did not reach my mind and 
heart, until my brother Herbert sought in the balsam 
forests relief from the cares of home and parish, and we 
talked together of our common loss in the quiet woods 
fringing the lake. I shall never forget the strange chill 
that froze my heart during one of these talks, when I 
bethought myself that I now belonged to the "passing 
generation." My mother's going had struck down a bar- 
rier which kept off the cold blast from the boundless Sea 
of Eternity. I could not shake off the fancy for many 
weeks. It recurred to me in wakeful midnights, and in 
the enforced rest succeeding toilful days, until it threat- 
ened to become an obsession. Instead of accepting this 
and other, to me, novel and distressing sensations, as feat- 
ures of confirmed invalidism, I fought them with all the 
might of a will that was not used to submission. 

The next winter was one of ceaseless conflict. I grew 
insanely sensitive on the subject of my failing health. 
When, after walking quickly up the stairs, or climbing the 
hill from the lower town to our home, a fit of coughing 
brought the blood to my lips, I stanched it with my 
handkerchief and kept the incident to myself. I went 
into a shop, or turned a corner, to avoid meeting any one 
who would be hkely to question me as to my health, or re- 
mark upon my pallor. At home, the routine of work 
knew no break; I attended and presided at charitable and 
parish meetings, as if nervous prostration were a figment 
of the hypochondriacal imagination. 

420 



''DRIFTING OUT" 

So well did I play the part to the members of my own 
household, that my husband himself believed me to be 
on the low, if not the high, road to recovery. He was as 
busy in his line as I pretended to be in mine, and certain 
projects affecting the future welfare of his parish were on 
foot, enlisting his lively interest. How far the pious de- 
ception may have gone, was not to be tested. The active 
intervention of one plain-spoken woman was the pivotal 
point of our two lives. 

I mentioned, some chapters back, the call of one of my 
best friends and the best neighbor I ever had, on the day 
of Mr. Lincoln's death. Although we had removed, by 
medical advice, to the higher part of the city, and a full 
mile away from her home, she never relaxed her neigh- 
borly kindness. I had not been aware of her close sur- 
veillance of myself; still less did I suspect at what con- 
clusion she had arrived. She had reasons, cogent and sad, 
for surveillance and conclusions. Several members of her 
own family had died of consumption, and she was familiar 
with the indications of the Great White Plague. When 
she came, day after day, to take me to drive at noon, when, 
as she phrased it, "the world was properly aired," and, 
when she could not come, sent carriage and coachman 
with the request that I would use the conveyance at pleas- 
ure — I was touched and a little amused at what was, I 
conceived, exaggerated solicitude for me, whose indisposi- 
tion was only temporary. Meanwhile, her quick eyes 
and keen wits were busy. Not a change of color, not a 
flutter of the breath escaped her, and in the fulness of 
time she opened her mouth and spoke. 

My husband had a habit, of many years' standing, of 
winding up a busy, harassing day by dropping into the 
home of our whilom neighbors, and having a tranquillizing 
cigar with the husband. I never expected him home be- 
fore midnight when he did this, and on one particular 

421 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

evening, knowing that he was at the B.'s, and feehng 
more than usually fatigued, I went to bed at ten. Awak- 
ened, by-and-by, by the glare of a gas-burner full in my 
face, I unclosed my eyes upon a visage so full of anxiety, 
so haggard with emotion, that I started up in alarm, 

"Don't be frightened!" he said, soothingly. "Nothing 
has happened. But, is it true that you are so ill as Mrs. 
B. would have me believe? And have I been blind?" 

The energetic Httle lady had, as she confessed to me 
when I charged her with it, freed her burdened mind with- 
out reserve or fear: 

"It was time somebody opened his eyes, and I felt my- 
self called to do it." 

Within twenty-four hours a consultation of physicians 
was held. 

They, too, made no secret of their verdict. The apex 
of the right lung was gone, and it was doubtful whether any- 
thing could prevent the rapid waste of both. When Doctor 
Terhune, ever a stanch believer in the efficacy of change 
of air and place, declared his determination to take me 
abroad, without the delay of a month, two of the Galens 
affirmed that it would be of no use. I "had not three 
months of life left to me, under the most favorable circum- 
stances." 

The ghastly truth was withheld from me at the time. 
I was told that I must not spend another winter in Newark, 
and that we would, if possible, go to the south of Europe 
for the winter. "To go abroad" had been the dream of 
my life. Yet, under the anticipation of the labor and bustle 
of closing the house, perhaps breaking up our home for 
good, and going forth into a new world, my strength failed 
utterly. Now that my husband knew the worst, there 
was no more need of keeping up appearances. I became 
aware that I had, all along, been holding on to life with 
will-power that had no physical underpinning. Each day 

422 



"DRIFTING OUT" 

found me weaker and more spiritless. The idea that I 
was chnging to a shred of existence by a thinning thread, 
seized upon me Hke a nightmare. And I was tired! tired! 

TIRED ! 

There came a day when I resolved to let go and drift 
out. 

That was the way I put it to my husband when he ap- 
proached my bed, from which I never arose until nine or 
ten o'clock, and inquired how I felt. 

"I am worn out, holding on!" I informed him. "I shall 
not get up to-day. All that is needed to end the useless 
fight is to let go and drift out. I shall drift!" 

He sat down on the side of the bed and looked at me. 
Not gloomily, but thoughtfully. There was not a sus- 
picion of sentimentality in the gaze, or in the tone in which 
he remarked, reflectively: 

"I appreciate fully what you mean, and how hard it is 
for you to keep on living. And I say nothing of the in- 
convenience it would cause your girls and myself were you 
to die. It is asking a great deal of you — " (bringing out 
the words slowly and with seeming reluctance). ''But if 
you could bring yourself to live until Bert is through col- 
lege, it would be a great kindness all around. The boy will 
go to the devil without his mother. Think of it — won't 
you? Just hold on until j^our boy is safely launched in 
life." 

With that he left me to "think of it." 

My boy! My baby! Just four years old, on my last 
birthday! The man-child, of whom I was wont to say 
proudly that he was the handsomest birthday gift I ever 
had, and that no young man could ever pay his mother a 
more delicate and gracious compliment than he had paid 
me in timing his advent upon December 21st. The baby 
that had Alice's eyes and brunette coloring! I lay still, 
staring up at the ceiling, and doing the fastest thinking I 

423 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

had ever accomplished. I saw the motherless boy, sensi- 
tive and high-spirited, affectionate and clever, the butt 
of rude lads, and misinterpreted by brutish teachers; ex- 
posed to fiery temptations at school and in college, and 
yielding to them for the lack of a mother's training and 
the segis of a mother's love. 

"The boy will go to the devil without his mother!" 

Hard words those, and curtly uttered, but they struck 
home as coaxings and arguments and pettings could not 
have done. 

In half an hour my husband looked in upon me again. 
I intercepted remark or query by saying: 

''Will you ring the bell for Rose to help me dress? I 
have made up my mind to hold on for a while longer." 

The tactful ruse had given me a new lease of life. 

One more circumstance connected with our first foreign 
trip may be worth mentioning here. 

During the simimer of 1855, which I spent in Boston 
and the vicinity, I consulted Ossian Ashley with regard 
to a project that had engaged my mind for some months — 
viz., indulging my long-cherished desire to visit Europe, 
and to spend a year there. There was no reason, that I 
could see, why I should wait longer to put the plan into 
execution. My parents were living, and were in the prime 
of healthy maturity; I had plenty of money of my own, 
and, if I had not, my father would cheerfully defray the 
expenses of the trip. We discussed the scheme at length, 
and with growing zest. Then he made the proposition that 
his wife should accompany me, taking her boy and girl 
along (she had but two children then), and that he would 
join us in time to journey with us for a few months, and 
bring us home. 

With this well-digested scheme in my mind, I returned 
to Richmond. There I met with strenuous opposition 
from an unexpected quarter: 

424 



A NONPAREIL PARISH 

"If you wUl stay at home and marry me, I guarantee to 
take you abroad within seven years," was one of the few 
promises the speaker ever broke to me. 

Just twenty-one years from the day in which Ossian 
Ashley and I blocked out the route his wife and T would 
take on the other side, I looked into his New York office 
to say that we had engaged passage for Liverpool for 
October 15th, and that we expected to be absent for two 
years at the least. 

His look was something to be remembered. His son 
was in a Berlin University, and Mrs. Ashley and her 
two young daughters would sail on September 15th for 
Liverpool, intending to go thence to Germany. They 
would remain there for two years. 

On the morrow, we had a letter from him, notifying us 
that they had exchanged the date of sailing for October 15th, 
and the boat for the City of Berlin, in which we were to sail. 

"A trifling delay of twenty-one years!" observed my hus- 
band, philosophically. "If all human projects came as near 
prompt fulfilment as that, there would be fewer grimiblers." 

We took with us our three children and my maid, who 
had been the boy's nurse. In Loiterings in Pleasant Paths, 
written in part while we sojourned abroad, she figures as 
"The Invaluable." Never was title more justly earned. 
In that book the events of the next two years are recorded 
at greater length than they could be set down here. 

I made no note there of the pain that seemed to pluck 
out our heartstrings, consequent upon our parting with 
our Newark parish and fellow-citizens. We had grown 
with the place, which was a mere village, eighteen years 
ago, by comparison with the large city we left. Her in- 
terests were ours. Doctor Terhune was identified with 
her public and private enterprises, and known by sight 
and by reputation throughout the town and its environs. 
His church stubbornly refused to consider his resignation 

425 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

as final. He might have an indefinite leave of absence 
— two, four, six years — provided he would engage to come 
to them when he could bring me back well. He wisely 
refused to listen to the proposal. The business quarter of 
the thriving city was encroaching upon the neighborhood 
of the church. It was likely to be abandoned as "a resi- 
dential locality" within a few years. In which event, the 
removal of building and congregation would be a neces- 
sity. The history of such changes in the character of sec- 
tions of fast-enlarging cities is familiar to all urbanites. 
It was essential, in the opinion of the retiring incumbent, 
that the church should select another pastor speedily, if 
it would retain its integrity and identity. 

The love and loyalty that had enveloped us, like a vitaliz- 
ing atmosphere, for almost a score of winters and summers, 
wrapped us warmly to the last. There were public re- 
ceptions and private house-parties, by the dozen, and 

"Partings such as press 
The life from out the heart," — 

and a gathering on the steamer on sailing-day that made 
us homesick in anticipation of the actual rending of ties 
that were living flesh and blood — and we were afloat. 

As one of the leading men in the church shook my hus- 
band's hand, in leaving the deck, he pressed into it an 
envelope. We were well down the bay when it was 
opened. It contained a supplementary letter of credit 
of three thousand dollars — the farewell gift of a few men 
whose names accompanied the token. 

''Faithful to the end!" murmured the recipient, reading 
the short list through mists that thickened between his 
eyes and the paper. "Had ever another man such a 
parish?" 

I answered "No!" then, emphatically. 

My response would be the same to-day. 

426 



XLIV 

TWO YEARS OVERSEAS — LIFE IN ROME AND GENEVA 

The main events of the two years spent abroad by our 
small family, including "The Invaluable," as we soon came 
to call Rose O'Neill, are set down in Loiterings in Pleasant 
Paths, a chatty volume of travel and sojourn, pubhshed 
soon after our return to America. The private record of 
those two dozen months would far surpass the book in 
bulk. It will never be written except as it is stamped 
upon "the fleshly tables of the hearts" of those who lived 
and loved, studied, and revelled with us. 

We had meant to pass the first winter in Paris, but the 
most beautiful city of the world was unfriendly to my sore 
and aching lung. After an experiment of six weeks, we 
broke camp and sped southward. Ten days in the fair 
Florence I was to learn in after years to love as a second 
home, repeated the doleful tale of fog, rain, and chill that 
pierced our bones. 

An old Richmond friend, with whom I had had many 
a jolly frohc in my early girlhood, was now Reverend 
Doctor Taylor, a resident of Rome. After the ex- 
change of several letters, we adopted his friendly advice 
that we should give the Eternal City a trial as the refuge 
we sought — so much less hopefully than at first, that I 
entreated my husband, on the rainy evening of our arrival 
in Rome, not to push inquiries further, but to let me go 
home, and die in comfort there. 

Doctor Taylor had ordered rooms for us in a family 

427 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

hotel well spoken of by Americans, and was at the station 
to conduct us to our quarters. 

I was deposited upon a sofa, when my wraps were re- 
moved, and lay there, fairly wearied out by the railway 
journey. The room was fireless and carpetless. I could feel 
the chill of the stone flooring and the bare walls through 
the blankets in which I was swathed by distressful Rose, 
who "guessed these Eyetahans hadn't the first notion of 
what American comfort is!" Three long French casements 
afforded a full view of leaden, low-stooping skies and 
straight sheets of rain. When a fire of sticks, besmeared 
with resin, was coaxed into a spiteful flare, the smoke 
puffed as spitefully into the room, and drifted up to the 
ceiling twenty feet overhead. Invited by my ever- 
hospitable husband to seat himself near an apology for a 
cheery hearthstone— less pitiful to him after his ten years' 
residence in Italy than to us, the new arrivals — our friend 
fell into social chat of ways and means. The carpet would 
be down to-morrow; the sun would shine to-morrow; I 
would be rested to-morrow. 

He broke off with a genial laugh there, to impart a bit 
of infomiation we were to prove true to the utmost during 
the next year: 

"Everything is 'domano' with Italians. I think the 
babies are born with it in their mouths. One falls into 
the habit with mortifying ease." 

I am afraid I dozed for a few minutes, lulled by the pat- 
ter of rain and the low-toned talk going on at the far (lit- 
erally) side of the apartment. A lively visitor used to 
wonder if we "could see across it on cloudy days without 
an opera-glass." 

This was the next sentence that reached me: 

"Thus far, we have met with discouragement. March is 
the most trying month to weak lungs in America. And 
ever since we landed in Liverpool we have had nothing but 

428 



LIFE IxN ROME AND GENEVA 

March weather. I think now we shall push on to Algiers" 
— ^glancing ruefully at the murky windows. "Upon one 
thing I am determined — to find a land where there is no 
March, as we know the month. For one year I want to 
secure that for my wife's breathing apparatus." 

"I know of but one such region." The answer was in 
the slight drawl natural to the George Taylor I used to 
know; the speaker stared sombrely into the peevish fire. 

"And that?" interrogated the other, eagerly. 

The drawl had now a nasal touch befitting the question : 

" 'No chilling winds, no poisonous breath 
Can reach that healthful shore!'" 

"Heavens and earth, man! That is just where I don't 
want her to go yet! Nor for many a long year!" 

The laugh I could not suppress helped to warm and 
brighten us all. Do any of us suspect how much we owe 
to the funny side of life? 

Thus began my Roman winter. With "domano" came 
the sunshine and the carpet, and the first of the hundred 
drives in and about the storied city, that were to bring 
healing and vigor, such as even my optimistic husband 
had scarcely dared to anticipate. That I am alive upon 
this wonderful, beautiful earth at this good hour, I owe, 
under God, to those divine four months among the Seven 
Hills. Doctor Terhune had received the appointment to 
the Chaplaincy of the American Chapel in Rome before 
we left Paris. He decided to accept it within a week after 
our arrival in the Eternal City. It was a cosey corner for 
pastor and flock — that little church in Piazza Poh, belong- 
ing to an Italian Protestant corporation, and occupied by 
them for half of each Sunday, by American tourists and 
transient residents of Rome for the other half. All my 
memories of the wonderful and bewitching winter are 
happy. None have a gentler charm than those which re- 

429 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

new the scenes of quiet Sunday forenoons when visitors 
from the dear home-land, who had never before looked 
upon the faces of their fellow-worshippers, gathered by 
common consent in the place "where prayer was wont to 
be made" in their own tongue. There were no strangers 
in the assembly that lingered in the tiny vestibule and 
blocked the aisle when the service was over. The spirit 
of mutual helpfulness spoke in eye and speech. It should 
not have been considered singular that those thus con- 
vened were, almost without exception, refined and edu- 
cated, and so unlike the commonly accepted type of travel- 
ling American, that we often commented upon the fact in 
conferences with famihar friends. We felicitated our- 
selves that we caught the cream of the flow of tourists, 
that season. 

"It is a breath of the dear old home-life!" said more 
than one attendant upon the simple services, where the 
congregation was kaleidoscopic in outward seeming, the 
same in spirit. 

I cannot pass over this period of our foreign hfe without 
a tribute to one whose friendship and able co-operation in 
the work laid to Doctor Terhune's hand, did more than any 
other one influence to make for him a home in Rome. Dr. 
Leroy M. Vernon, who subsequently became Dean of the 
University of Syracuse, in New York State, was the rarest 
combination of strength and gentleness I have ever seen. 
He had been for some years resident in Rome; was an en- 
thusiastic archaeologist and art-student, speaking ItaUan 
with fluency and grace, and thoroughly au fait to the best 
Hterature of that tongue. From the beginning of their 
acquaintanceship, the two men fraternized heartily. In 
the ripening of liking into intimacy, they walked, rode, 
talked, and studied together. What the association was 
to the younger of the two, may be imagined by one who 
has had the privilege of close communion with a beloved 

430 



LIFE IN ROME AND GENEVA 

comrade who held the key to the treasure-house one has 
longed all his life to enter. 

"The winter in Italy with Vernon was worth more to 
me than a course in the Academy of Fine Arts, combined 
with ten years of archaeological lectures from experts," 
was the testimony of the survivor, twenty years later, when 
the news of the dean's death was brought to us. 

They loved each other tenderly to the end of mortal 
companionship. 

Who can doubt that it has been renewed in the City 
where eager minds are never checked by physical weak- 
ness, and aspiration is identical with fulfilment? 

In mid-May, when the Pincio put on its beautiful gar- 
ments in the purple flowering of the Judas-trees, and the 
tawny Tiber rolled between hills of hving green, we turned 
our backs upon what those marvellous months had wrought 
into our own familiar dwelling-place, and took our sad, 
reluctant way to Florence. Five weeks there were varied 
by excursions to Fiesole, Bologna, and Venice. Our next 
move was to Lucerne. Leaving the children in care of 
'The Invaluable," we ran up to Heidelberg, joining there 
our kinspeople, the Ashleys, and travelling with them 
leisurely over mountain and through pass, until we brought 
up in Geneva. 

We were hardly settled, as we supposed for the season, 
in the bright little town of Calvin and Voltaire, when a 
summons came from the American Chapel in Paris for 
Doctor Terhune's services, pending the absence of the regu- 
lar incumbent in America, whither he had been summoned 
by the illness of his mother. We had no thought that the 
separation of the head from our transplanted family would 
be a matter of even a few weeks, whereas it lasted for four 
months. There was visiting back and fro; a reunion at 
Christmas under the -massive crowns of mistletoe, such as 
grow nowhere else — not even in the Britain of the Druids 

431 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

• — and a memorable New- Year's dinner at the Hotel 
Metropole, arranged under American auspices, the chief 
pride of the feast being mince-pies, concocted by Yankee 
housewives, and misspelled among the French dishes on 
the gorgeously illuminated menus. In February, my eld- 
est daughter and myself went to Paris for a fortnight — a 
tentative trip which proved beyond a question that the 
air of the city on the Seine was rank poison to the heahng 
lungs. We hurried back to jolly, friendly Geneva, where 
I could walk five miles per diem in air that was the very 
elixir of life to my system, physical, mental, and moral. 
Even the lusty winds from Mont Blanc, and the rough 
gales that lashed Lake Leman into yeasty ridges for a 
week at a time, wrought strength, instead of harm. That 
bodily strength grew apace was but one element in the 
fulness of content in which we basked throughout the 
eight months we spent in the lakeside city, behind which 
the Alps stood in sublime calmness that was in itself tonic 
and inspiration. We had a pleasant appartement in the 
Pension Magnenat, directly upon the quay. From our 
drawing-room windows we looked across the lake upon the 
Juras, capped with snow, and made beautiful exceedingly 
all day long, by changeful fights and shadows, reflected in 
the waters in opaline, prismatic hues we had never seen 
surpassed, even in Italy. 

The American colony in Geneva has a stable reputation 
for intelfigence and good-breeding. One expects to find 
these in university towns abroad, as at home. It may 
not have been unusually delightful that winter. Perhaps 
climate and health combined with our peaceful domestic 
life, to incline us to be more than satisfied with our social 
environment. Certain it is that the circle of congenial 
associates, that had widened to take us in, as a part of a 
harmonious corporate whole, was, to our apprehension, 
ideally charming. Everybody had some specific work or 

432 



LIFE IN ROME AND GENEVA 

pursuit to explain his, or her residence in Geneva. The 
younger men were in the university, or in preparation for 
it, with "coaches"; the girls were studying French, Ger- 
man, and Italian, or painting from nature under such in- 
structors as Madame Vouga, whose renown as a painter of 
wild flowers was international. We matrons had a reading- 
class, enlivened by the membership of our daughters, that 
met weekly at the house of some one of the party. To it 
we brought our easels, boards, and. paint-boxes, our 
embroidery, or other fancy-work. One of the girls read 
aloud for two hours— history, biography, or essay — and at 
five o'clock what had been read was discussed freely over 
afternoon tea. A club of young people of both sexes read 
German, alternately with Italian and French plays, on 
Wednesday night, in my salon, I playing chaperon at my 
embroidery-frame at a side-table, and admitted to the 
merry chat that went around with coffee and cake, when 
the reading was concluded. Some of the members of that 
informal "Club" have made their mark in the large outer 
world since that care-free, all-satisfying sojourn in what 
we forgot to call an alien land, so happily did we blend 
with the classic influences, lapping us about so softly that 
we were never conscious of the acchmating process. 

The tall youth, who submitted meekly (or gallantly) to 
correction of lingual lapses in his rendering of Moliere or 
Wallenstein or Ariosto, from the girl at his elbow— reveng- 
ing himself by a brisk fire of badinage in honest English 
after the books were closed — is an eminent metropolitan 
lawyer, whose income runs up well into the tens of thou- 
sands; another, a Berlin graduate, is the dignified dean of 
a law school attached to an American university ; another 
is a college professor; another, a Genevan graduate, is 
rising in fame and fortune in an English city ; one, beloved 
by all, completed a brilliant course at Harvard, and when 
hope and life were in their prime, laid his noble head down 

433 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

for his last sleep in Mount Auburn. The gay girls are staid 
matrons and mothers now, with sons and daughters of 
their own, as old as themselves were in that far-off, care- 
free time. 

I have written "care-free" twice upon one page, and 
because I can conjure up no other phrase that so aptly 
describes what that veritable arbor on the Hill Difficulty 
we call "Life," was to me. Household cares were an un- 
known quantity in the well - conducted pension. Our 
breakfast of French rolls, coffee, tea, boiled eggs, honey, 
and, for the younger children, creamy milk, was brought to 
our salon every morning. A substantial luncheon (the 
dejeuner a la fourchette) was served in the pension salle h 
manger at one, and a dinner of six or seven courses, at 
seven. Our fellow-guests were, for the most part, un- 
objectionable; a fair proportion were agreeable and de- 
sirable acquaintances. About one-third were Americans; 
another third were English; the rest were Italians, Ger- 
mans, Russians, and French. A table at one end of the 
room was assigned to English-speaking boarders, and we 
soon made up a pleasant clique that did not, however, 
exclude several foreigners. Thus we persisted in calhng 
them to ourselves. There were excursions every few days 
to places of interest within easy reach. Coppet, the home 
and burial-place of Madame de Stael; the Villa Diodati, 
where Byron and Shelley lived and wrote; Ferney the 
chateau from which Voltaire wrote letters to the magnates 
of the world, and within the walls of which he entertained 
all the famous wits and many of the beauties of his stir- 
ring times; Chillon, immortalized by Bonnivard and the 
poem founded upon his captivity — were some of the mem- 
orable haunts with which frequent visits made us familiar. 

Exercise was a luxury in the ozone-fraught air, fresh 
every morning, and work was the natural result of the 
abounding vitality thus engendered. In no other quarter 

434 



LIFE IN ROME AND GENEVA 

of the globe have I found such sustained vigor of fhental 
and physical forces as during our residence in Switzerland. 
I record the fact gratefully, and as a possible helpful sug- 
gestion to other sufferers from the overstimulating cli- 
mate and prevalent energy of American Hfe. Rome was a 
gracious rest; Geneva was upbuilding. 

It was a positive wrench to the heartstrings to leave 
her in May, and take our course leisurely northward. 

The summer was given, and happily, to England, our 
headquarters being, successively, the Isle of Wight, Leam- 
ington, and Brighton. 

Late in September, we sailed for New York. 

29 



XLV 

SUNNYBANK — A NEW ENGLAND PARISH — "mY BOYS" — TWO 

"starred" names 

With no more idea as to our permanent abiding-place 
than had the Father of the Faithful, when he turned his 
back upon Ur of the Chaldees, and his face toward a land 
he knew not of, ''still journeying toward the south," in 
obedience to daily marching orders — we sought, upon 
reaching our native shores, the one pied-a-terre left to us 
on the continent. 

Sunnybank had been left in charge of the gardener, 
who, with his comely English wife and four children, had 
now occupied the lodge at the gate of our domain for ten 
years. He was Pompton-born and bred, and so unro- 
mantic in sentiment and undemonstrative in demeanor, 
that we were not prepared to behold a triumphal wreath 
on the gate when we drove into the grounds. No human 
creature was visible until, winding through the grove that 
hides the house from the highway, we saw the whole fam- 
ily collected about the door. All were in holiday garb; 
wreaths of goldenrod hung in the windows, and above 
the porch was tacked a scroll with the word "Welcome" 
wrought upon it in the same flowers. Yet more amazed 
were we when, as Doctor Terhune stepped from the car- 
riage, Conrad knelt suddenly and embraced the knees of 
his employer, with an inarticulate shout of joy, tears raining 
down his tanned cheeks. 

"Just hke a scene in an Enghsh play!" commented 

436 



SUNNYBANK 

Christine, afterward. "But not a bit like what one would 
expect in Pompton, New Jersey, U. S. A." 

The unexpectedness of it all, especially the involuntary 
outbreak in a man who had never seen a play in his 
hfe, and despised "foolishness" of whatsoever description, 
moved us to answering softness, and brought the first 
rush of home-gladness we had felt since landing. For, to 
be honest, I confess that none of us were as yet reconciled 
to exchanging the Hfe we had luxuriated in for the past 
two years— full, rich, and varied— for a toilful routine of 
parish duties, we knew not where. Without confiding the 
weakness to the others, each of us, as we owned subse- 
quently with a twinge of shame, had been wofully dashed 
in spirit by the circumstances attending our arrival. 
Clarence Ashley had met us upon the wharf, his mother 
and sisters being at their country-place; the day was un- 
seasonably warm for late September, and New York was 
in its least attractive out-of-season dress and mood. The 
docks were dirty, and littered with trunks, crates, and 
boxes; the custom-house officers were slow, and most of 
them sulky. We parted on the wharf with a dear friend 
from Virginia, who had travelled with us for nearly a year, 
and had taken return passage in the same ship. She had 
a home to which to go. We felt hke pilgrims and strangers 
in a foreign land. As the carriage into which we had 
packed ourselves threaded its way through the grimy 
purheus of the lower city, I found myself saying over 
mentally the unpatriotic doggerel I used to declare was 
unworthy of any true American: 

"The streets are narrow and the buildings mean- 
Did I, or fancy, leave them broad and clean?" 

Then, the fields and roads past which the train (yclept 
"an accommodation") bumped and swung, were ragged 
and dusty; the hedge-rows were unkempt, the trees un- 

437 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

trimmed. Fresh as we were from the verdure of Enghsh 
parks, the shaven lawns, and blossoming hedges that make 
a garden-spot of the tight little island we proudly recog- 
nized as our Old Home, the effect of that sultry afternoon 
was distinctly depressing. Our lakeside cottage, the one 
nook in all the broad land we could call ''Home," on this 
side of the water, was another disappointment. Mrs. Hay- 
cock and her girls had wrought zealously to make it com- 
fortable, and even festive. The wee rooms (as they looked 
to us) were shining clean; flowers were set here and there, 
white curtains, white bedspreads, and bright brasses be- 
tokened loving sohcitude for our welfare and contentment, 
and the good woman had ready a hot supper, enriched with 
such Pompton dainties as she knew we loved. "The In- 
valuable" bustled over luggage, and added finishing touches 
to bedrooms and nursery. I am sure she was the only one 
of the returned exiles who was really happy that night. 

I am thus frank in relating our experiences, because I 
believe them to be identical with those of a majority of 
tourists, upon resuming home-habits in their native country. 
After excitement and novelty comes the ebb-tide of re- 
action for the bravest and the most loving. Home is home, 
but readjustment precedes real enjoyment of the old scenes 
and ways. 

We were hardly settled in the nest before we paid a 
promised visit to Richmond. There were resident there, 
now, three famihes of the clan. My brother Horace and 
the noble wife with whom my intimacy continued un- 
shadowed by a cloud of distrust until her death in 1894; 
my sister Myrtle, more my daughter than sister, her 
husband, and the boy who was my husband's namesake; 
and Percy, the youngling of the brood, with a dainty little 
spouse and their first-born son — made up the group that 
welcomed us to dear old Richmond in early December. 

To this was added, a week or so later, our eldest sister, 

438 



A NEW ENGLAND PARISH 

who journeyed all the way from her Missouri home to join 
in the greetings to the whilom wanderers. We had one 
more Christmas-week together — the last that was to col- 
lect the unbroken band under one roof-tree. Then Mea 
went westward, and we took our way toward the north, 
leaving Christine to make her debut in society under the 
auspices of her uncles and aunts, and where her mother had 
first tasted the pleasures of young-ladyhood. 

It was, as I wrote to her, history repeating itself, and 
that I felt as if I had taken root again in my native soil, 
and was budding anew into a second springtime. 

In May I wrote to the girl whose first winter ''out" had, 
thanks to the affectionate adoption of uncles and aunts, 
fulfilled her rosiest dreams: 

"Do you recollect that I quoted to you at our parting in 
January, what a quaint okl lady said to me in my girlhood: 
'My dear, you may be an angel some day! You will never 
be young again. Therefore, make the most of youth.' 

"I paraphrase her counsel now, and to you: Make the most 
of your present freedom, for you are going to be a pastor's 
daughter again. As you know, your father has been preach- 
ing hither and yon all winter, and has had four calls to as 
many different churches: two in New Jersey, one in New 
Haven, and, lastly, in Springfield, Massachusetts. For rea- 
sons that seem good and sufficient to him, he has accepted 
the last-named invitation, and he will enter upon the duties 
connected therewith, this month. 

"The 'Old First' is the most ancient church in Springfield, 
if not the oldest in the Connecticut Valley. It has had an 
honorable history, in more than two hundred years of exist- 
ence. If you have read Doctor Holland's Bay Path, you will 
recollect Mr. Moxon, the then pastor of this church. Per- 
haps because I have read the book, and maybe because my 
old Massachusetts grandmother (a Puritan of the Puritans, 
and preciously uncomfortable to live with, she was!) talked 
to me of the straitlaced notions, works, and ways of the 

439 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

'orthodox' New-Englander, which she thought 'blazed' the 
only road to heaven — I have an idea that we will find the 
atmosphere of Springfield very different from any other in 
which we have lived. If I am right, it will be a change even 
from Presbyterian Richmond. However this may be, I 
counsel you to enjoy the remaining weeks of your stay there 
to the utmost." 

If I were called upon to describe what was the real 
"atmosphere" of the loveliest of New England towns, in 
which we lived for five busy years, I should say that it was 
"stratified," and that in a fashion that puzzled us griev- 
ously up to the latest day of our sojourn. Public spirit 
of the best and most enlightened sort; refinement and 
taste in art and literature; social manners and usages that 
were metropolitan, and neighborliness which made the 
stranger and sojourner welcome and at ease — all this was 
"shot," if I may so express it, with strata of bigotry; with 
stubborn convictions that the holders thereof were right, 
and the insignificant residue of the world utterly wrong, 
and with primitive modes of daily life and speech, that 
never ceased to surprise and baffle us. Yet we flattered 
ourselves that we knew something of the world and the 
inhabitants thereof! 

In the process of acclimation we had occasion, if we had 
never had it before, to be thankful for the unfailing and 
robust sense of humor that had stood our friend in many 
straits which would else have been annoyances. Before 
long, we recognized that certain contradictory phases of 
conduct and language, hard to comprehend and hard to 
endure, had their keynote in what one of the best of my 
new friends once aptly defined to me as "an agony of in- 
communicableness, " inherent in the New-Englander's com- 
position. He may have drawn the strain through nearly 
three centuries from his early English ancestry. I have 
seen the same paradox in the Briton of this generation. 

440 



"MY BOYS" 

Of one such man I said, later in life, when I was alone 
with my sick son, thousands of miles from home: "The ice 
was slow in breaking up; but it gave way all at once, and 
there was warm water under it." 

"Agony of incommunicableness !" Over and over, dur- 
ing those five years, I blessed the man who put that key 
into my hand. 

I cannot better illustrate what I am trying to explain 
than by relating what is, to me, one of the most precious 
and altogether satisfactory memories connected with our 
Springfield experiences. 

Four months after our removal to the beautiful city, I 
received a formal request (everything up to that time had 
a smack of formality to my apprehension) that I would take 
charge of a young men's Bible-class, the teacher of which 
had left the town. The application was startling, for not 
one of the young fellows had ever called on me, or evinced 
other consciousness of the insignificant fact of my exist- 
ence than was impUed in a grave salutation at the church- 
door and on the street. After consultation with my hus- 
band I accepted the position, and on the next Sabbath 
was duly inducted into office by the superintendent. That 
is, he took me to the door of the class-room and announced : 
"Mrs. Terhune, young gentlemen, who will conduct your 
class in the place of Mr. L., resigned." 

I walked up the room to face eight bearded men, the 
youngest twenty - two years of age, drawn up in line of 
battle at the far end. I bowed and said "Good-afternoon," 
in taking the seat and table set for me in front of the 
line. They bowed in silence. I began the attack by dis- 
claiming the idea of "teaching" them, conceahng as best 
I could my consternation at finding men where I had 
looked for lads. I asked "the privilege of studying with 
them," and thanked them for the compliment of the in- 
vitation to do this. Then I opened the Bible and delivered 

441 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

a familiar running lecture upon the lesson for the day. 
Not a question was asked by one of the dumb eight, and 
not a comment was made at the close of the "exercises" 
upon what had been said. I went through the miserable 
form of shaking hands with them all as we separated, and 
carried home a thoroughly discouraged spirit. By the fol- 
lowing Sunday I hit upon the idea of calling upon each 
student to read a reference text, as it occurred in the course 
of the lecture, and I took care there should be plenty of 
them. That was the first crack in the ice. Encouraged 
by the sound of their own voices, the young fellows put a 
query or two, and I used these as nails upon which to hang 
observations not indicated in the "lesson-papers." Next 
week there were sixteen in line. Before the first year was 
out there were forty, and they gave a dramatic entertain- 
ment in a neighboring hall, which netted a sum large 
enough to enlarge the class-room to double the original 
size. They decorated it with their own hands, and I was 
with them every evening thus employed. 

Still, there was never a syllable to indicate that this was 
anything but a business venture. I love boys with my 
whole heart, and I had said this and more in their hearing, 
eliciting no response. 

At the end of the second year, when there were fifty 
members in the class, one of the eldest of the number re- 
moved from Springfield to a distant city. One of the great- 
est surprises of my life was in the form of a letter I had 
the week after he had bidden me good-bye as coolly as if 
he had expected to see me next Sunday as usual. 

He began by telling me how often he had wished he could 
express what those Sunday afternoons had been in his 
life. He "feared that I might have thought him unre- 
sponsive and ungrateful." 

"If indeed you ever troubled yourself to bestow more 
than a passing thought upon this one of the many to whom 

442 



"MY BOYS" 

you have ministered," he went on, "I don't believe you 
ever noticed that I let nobody else take the seat next to 
you on the left? I used to go very early to make sure of 
it. I shall unite with the church here next Sunday. You 
have a right to know of a purpose, formed weeks ago, in 
that class-room — the most sacred spot to me on earth." 

He wrote to me of his marriage two years later, then of 
the coming of his first-born son. About once a year I 
heard from him, and that he was prospering in business 
and happy in his home. Ten years ago I had a paper con- 
taining a marked obituary-notice bearing his name. 

The same story, with variations that do not affect the 
general purport of the class-history, might be repeated 
here. I hear of "my boys" from all parts of the world. 
All are gray-haired now who have not preceded their grate- 
ful leader to the Changeless Home. 

There were sixty-six of them when I told them, one Sun- 
day afternoon, five years after our first meeting, that Doc- 
tor Terhune had accepted a pressing call to a Brooklyn 
church, and that I must leave them. The news was abso- 
lutely unexpected, and a dead silence ensued. Then one 
fellow, who had been received into the church with ten 
others of our class, at the preceding communion season, 
arose in his place: 

"Is there anything we could do to keep him — and 
you?" he asked, huskily. "Has anybody done anything to 
make your residence here unpleasant? If so " — stammer- 
ing now, and a defiant scowl gathering upon his hand- 
some face — "Say! can't we fellows just clean tJiem out, and 
keep you and the Doctor?" 

It was impossible not to laugh. It was as impossible to 
hold back the tears at the odd demonstration of the " boys' " 
claim to membership in the Church Militant. He may 
have forgotten the upgushing of the warm water under 
the ice. I shall never lose the memory. 

443 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Nor yet of the farewell reception to which the boys 
rallied in force, excluding all other guests from the pleasant 
class-room we had built, and in which I spent some of the 
happiest hours vouchsafed to me in the city I had called 
"a cold-storage vault," before I got under the ice of 
English reserve and Puritanical self-consciousness — en- 
gendered, as I am fain to beheve, by the rigid self- 
examination enjoined by the founders of State and Church. 
In those rude and strenuous days, self-examination took 
the place, with tortured, naked souls, of the penances 
prescribed in the communion they had left to find 

"Freedom to worship God," 

and 

"A church without a bishop, 
A state without a king." 

The class-room was wreathed with flowers; there was 
music by the boys, and social chat; a collation of their own 
devising: then the eldest of the band, a married man for 
years, goodly of form and feature, and with a nature as 
lovely as his face, arose to make a farewell "presentation 
address." He never finished it, although it began bravely 
enough. The handsome set of brasses he passed over to 
me were labelled, as he showed me, "From Your Boys." 

"You will have another class in your new home," the 
speaker broke into the carefully prepared peroration to 
say, " but please let us always call ourselves, ' Your Boys!' " 

They are that still, and they will be evermore! A finer, 
more loyal body of young men it would be hard to find 
in New England, or elsewhere. It has happened so often 
that I have come to look for it, that, on steamer or train, 
on the street or in hotel, I am accosted by a middle-aged 
man — invariably highly respectable in appearance — with — 

"I beg your pardon. Let me recall myself to your 
memory. I belonged to your Bible-class in Springfield." 

444 



TWO "STARRED" NAMES 

If, as usually happens, he adds to his name, "One of 
your boys" — the ashes are blown away from the embers of 
long-past acquaintanceship. The talk that ensues invari- 
ably emphasizes the pleasing fact that, if there were a black 
sheep in our fold, he has, up to date, escaped detection. 

God bless each and every one of them ! 

I cannot close the chapter that has to do with our 
Springfield days, without paying a brief tribute to two who 
played important parts in the drama of our family life. 
Both have passed from mortal vision, and I may, there- 
fore, name them freely. 

The house built for us by a parishioner in the pleasantest 
part of the city, was in the immediate neighborhood of the 
homestead of the late Samuel Bowles, the well-known pro- 
prietor of the Springfield Republican. The house was now 
occupied by his widow and family. To the warm friend- 
ship that grew up between Mrs. Bowles and myself I owe 
more than I can trust my pen to express here. From our 
earhest meeting, the "middle wall of partition " of stranger- 
hood ceased to be to either of us. Hers, as I often reminded 
her, was the one and only house in the place into which 
I could drop, between the lights, unannounced, when the 
humor seized me, and without putting on hat or coat. 
The ascent of the half-block of space dividing our doors is 
ever associated in my mind with the gloaming and moon- 
light, and slipping away from duties to relax thought 
and tongue, for one calming and sweetening half-hour, in 
the society of one "who knew." It was not alone that, 
as one who had been born, and had lived out her girlhood 
in the Middle States, her range of ideas and sympathies 
was not limited by the circle of hills binding Springfield 
into a close corporation. Her great, warm heart took in 
the homesick stranger that I was, for many a month after 
transplantation, and gave me a corner of my very own. 
She was a safe, as well as an appreciative hstener, and 

445 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

gave me many a hint respecting my new environment that 
wrought out good to me. Her fine sense of humor was 
another bond that drew us together. The snug sitting- 
room, looking upon the quiet street, up which the shadows 
gathered slowly on summer evenings, and where the sleigh- 
bells jingled shrilly in the early winter twilight, echoed to 
bursts of laughter better befitting a pair of school-girls 
than two matrons who were both on the shady side of 
fifty. I was in the earthly Jerusalem, with my son, when 
the gates of the Celestial City opened to receive her faithful, 
loving spirit. I am sure that, as Bunyan affirmed when 
another travel- worn pilgrim entered into rest, "All the bells 
of the city rang for joy," 

In April, 1884, our eldest daughter became the wife of 
James Frederick Herrick, one of the Republican's editorial 
staff. We left her in Springfield when, in the same year, 
we returned to the Middle States to take up our abode for 
the next twelve years in Brooklyn. We could not have 
left her in safer, tenderer keeping. A brother-editor said 
of him once that he "had a heart of fire in a case of ice." 
The simile did not do justice to the gentle courtesy and 
dignity that lent a touch of old -school courtliness to 
manner and address. In all the intimate association of 
the next ten years, I never saw in him an act, or heard a 
word that approximated unkindness or incivihty. I wrote 
him down then, as I do now, as in all respects, the thorough 
gentleman in what makes the much-abused word a badge 
of honor. His ideals were high and pure; his life, private 
and professional, above reproach. 

"The stuff martyrs and heroes are made of," said one 
who knew him well and long. 

He would have died for the truth; he would have laid 
down his life with a smile for his wife and children. Such 
harmonious blending of strength and sweetness as were 
found in the life of this man — modest to a fault, 

446 



TWO "STARRED" NAMES 

and resolute to a proverb — I have never seen in an- 
other. 

"7 have fought the good fight'' is the wording of his 
epitaph. I could have wished to add, "0/ whovi the world 
was not worthy." 

In 1886 he received an appointment that brought him 
to New York. There he yielded up a blameless life in 
1893. If his last illness were not the direct result of steady, 
unremitting work, it is yet true that he wrought gallantly 
after the fatal fever fastened upon him, standing patiently 
in his lot until prostrated by delirium, 

I shall part with reason and memory before I forget that 
his last thought was of the young wife kneeling at his pil- 
low, and that the dying eyes, in losing their hold upon 
earth, committed her to me. 



XLVI 

RETURN TO MIDDLE STATES — THE HOLY LAND — MY FRIENDS 
THE MISSIONARIES — TWO CONSULS IN JERUSALEM 

In the sketch of my husband's Hfe-work, written by a 
faithful co-laborer in the vineyard which is the world, and 
appended to this story, his reasons for returning to the 
Middle States are briefly given. As I near the latter 
chapters of my record, I am hampered by the necessity of 
treating cautiously of persons and incidents too near the 
present day to be spoken of with the freedom time made 
justifiable in earlier reminiscences. Those twelve years in 
the City of Churches were crowded with events of more or 
less moment. They were busy, and not unhappy years. 
Our home-group, reduced to four by the marriage of our 
eldest daughter, was made still smaller by the marriage of 
her sister on March 5, 1889, to Frederic Van de Water, of 
Brooklyn. The choice was wise, and the union has been 
one of rare blessedness. 

"In-laws" have no terrors in our circle. No sinister 
significance attaches to the term "mother-in-law." The 
adopted sons were loyal and loving to the parents of their 
wives. Not a cloud darkens the memory of our inter- 
course. The only obstacle to Belle's marriage was thus 
stated in whimsical vexation by her father; 

"It is hard that, when there are said to be fifteen hun- 
dred proper names in the English language, my girls must 
select men who have the same. It leads to no end of con- 
fusion!" 

Our boy, now grown into an athletic six-footer, was 

448 



RETURN TO MIDDLE STATES 

graduated from Columbia University in 1893. We three 
had lived in great peace and contentment during his col- 
lege course. We talk often, and wistfully, of those four 
years of church-work, social duties, Hterary tasks, and aca- 
demic studies, which filled hands and heads. We spent our 
winters in town. Sunnybank grew to be more and more 
a home in the summer months. It was like a return to the 
time when our own babies filled house and verandas with 
merry prattle, and our hearts made music ; for there were, 
at the date I name, four boys to repeat the history for the 
proud grandparents. But for the great sorrow that had 
broken up Christine's happy home in February, and brought 
her back to us with her two boys, and the birth, a fort- 
night thereafter, of Belle's second boy, the years slipped 
by brightly, without other signal event until "Bert's" 
graduation at the June Commencement. There was, for 
me, one notable exception to the gentle flow. 

It was, I think, in mid-June, that 1 had a letter from 
the proprietor of the Christian Herald, a religious paper 
of wide circulation, asking me to write a serial that should 
run through six months' issues of that periodical. Just at 
that time my mind was working upon a projected story 
(published afterward in book-form under the caption The 
Royal Road), and this seemed a promising medium for cir- 
culating it among the classes I wished to reach. Accord- 
ingly, I called at the Christian Herald office to discuss the 
plan. My brief and satisfactory interview with the man- 
aging editor over, I arose to go when he invited me to step 
into the adjoining room, where the proprietor would like 
to speak with me for a minute. I was courteously received, 
and final arrangements for the publication of the serial 
were made. I was again on the point of departure, when 
the proprietor directed my attention to a new and hand- 
some map of the city of Jerusalem, spread out upon his desk, 
inquiring, in an offhand way: 

449 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

"Have you ever visited the Holy Land?" 

" Never," I replied, adding involuntarily, " It has been 
one of my dearest dreams that I might go some day." 

"It would be a very easy matter for you to fulfil the 
wish," in the same easy, unpremeditated tone. 

"Easy?" I repeated. "Yes; in my dreams!" 

"In the flesh, and in reality. Will you sit down for a 
moment, please?" 

He proceeded then, in less time than it will take me 
to write it, to unfold a plan in which I soon saW, although 
he did not say it, that the serial story, my call, and the 
map of Jerusalem, conspicuously displayed on his desk, 
were so many stages of a carefully concerted scheme. He 
wanted me to go to Syria, with the express purpose of in- 
vestigating the condition of the women of that land, and 
getting an insight into their domestic life, and at the 
same time incidentally gleaning material for sketches of 
historical localities — in short, to gather material for such 
"familiar talks" as I had held with American women upon 
household and social topics. These were to be supplied 
to his paper, week by week. His provision for travelhng 
expenses would include those of my husband, or any other 
escort I might select. The sum he named as remuneration 
for the work was handsome, but this circumstance made a 
slight impression upon me at the time. Our dialogue ended 
in my promise to take the matter into consideration, and 
to let him have my decision in a day or two. I hope he 
never guessed at the whirl of emotions lying back of a 
sober face and calm demeanor. 

I recollect walking out into the bustling streets as if I 
trod upon air, my head ringing as if nerves were taut 
harpstrings, my heart throbbing tumultuously. I scarcely 
knew where I was, or whither I was going. Something, 
somewhere — it seemed in the upper ether, yet so near that 
I heard words and music — was singing rapturously: 

450 



THE HOLY LAND 

"Jerusalem the Golden! 

Methinks each flower that blows, 
And every bird a-singing 

Of that sweet secret knows. 
I know not what the flowers 

May feel, or singers see, 
But all these summer raptures 

Are prophecies of thee!" 

It was my favorite hymn, but it was nothing in me that 
sang it then. 

"One of my dearest dreams!" — ever since, as a child, 
I had fed a perfervid imagination upon Bible stories, and 
chanted David's psalms aloud in the Virginia woods, to 
tunes of my own making. One of them broke into the 
jubilant Jerusalem the Golden pealing in the ether over- 
head : 

"My feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem!" 

Was I, then, so near the fulfilment of the heavenly 
dream? 

We sailed for the Holy City in September — my big boy 
and I. Doctor Terhune could not go, and we had always 
promised that our son should have a foreign trip when his 
university work was done. The opportunity was auspi- 
cious. 

Each of us told as much of the story of the memorable 
seven months abroad as we were willing the pubhc should 
read — I, in the letters published first in the Christian Her- 
ald, subsequently in book-form under the title, The Home 
of the Bible; Bert, in a smaller volume, Syria from the 
Saddle, a breezy chronicle of a young man's impressions 
of what he saw and heard while in Syria. I considered it 
then, and I think it now, a remarkable book, coming, as it 
did, from the pen of a boy of twenty-one. He celebrated 

30 451 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

his majority in the desert-places between Damascus and 
Jerusalem. 

Two or three incidents, eventful forever to us, may be 
mentioned briefly in this personal narrative. 

I am not a believer in dreams. I do attach importance 
to "coincidences," holding some that have fallen into my 
life in reverence the more sincere because I cannot explain 
them away. 

One night in Paris, where we spent a fortnight on the 
way to Syria via Egypt, I had a long and distressing dream 
of carrying a poor ailing baby along dark streets and over 
fences and fields. My arms ached under the weight of 
the limp body; my heart and ears ached with the piteous 
wailing of the sufferer, for whom I could do nothing. I 
awoke in the morning, utterly worn out in nerve, and de- 
pressed unreasonably in spirit. That forenoon I wrote 
my daughter: 

"It was an ugly, gruesome dream. Your aunt Myrtle 
would see in it an omen of evil. She says that a death in the 
family has always followed her dream of the sick baby she 
cannot put out of her arms. It is an old superstition. You 
may recollect that Charlotte Bronte alludes to it in Jane 
Eyre. I have so such dreads. Yet I find myself wishing 
that I had not had that 'visitation.' It has left a very un- 
pleasant impression on my mind — a sort of bad taste in my 
mental mouth. I am thankful that it came to me, and not 
to Myrtle." 

My sister had been ill before we left home, but was con- 
valescent when we sailed, and a letter from her husband 
awaited us in Paris, conveying the cheerful assurance of 
her confirmed improvement in health and strength, and 
bidding me have no further anxiety on her account. 

It was, therefore, a teirible shock when a letter, forward- 
ed from place to place, overtook us in Northern Syria, in- 

452 



THE HOLY LAND 

forming us that my dear little "sister -daughter," as she 
loved to call herself, had died on the night of November 
3, 1893 — the very night through which the "gruesome" 
dream had pursued me from midnight until dawn. Chris- 
tine wrote in reply: 

"When we read your letter of that date, Belle's eyes met 
mine in silent, awesome questioning. Merely a coincidence? 
Perhaps, but strange!" 

I can add no other comment. 

My second eventful incident hinges upon a short severe 
illness that prostrated me, the third day after we landed 
in Beirut from the steamer we had taken at Port Said. I 
had already made acquaintance with President Bhss and 
some of the professors in the American College, crowning 
one of the heights of the beautiful town, and I sent at 
once for Doctor Schauffler, whom I had known sUghtly in 
Springfield, Massachusetts. 

On the fourth day of my illness I asked him, plaintively: 

"Do you know there is not a woman-servant in this 
hotel? The person who 'does' my room has a long white 
beard and wears a skull-cap. Bert calls the photograph 
he has made of the nondescript: 'Lefemme de chambre!' 
It is very funny — and rather dreadful !" 

"The beloved physician" eyed me in thoughtful com- 
passion. 

"We are so used to that sort of thing here that we rarely 
think of it as out of the way. No decent woman would 
take a position in a house where she must work with men. 
She would lose caste and reputation, forthwith. Hence, 
* le femme de chamhre.' I can see that it must be intensely 
disagreeable to you." 

There the matter dropped. I was stiU in bed when, at 
four o'clock that afternoon, he paid his second visit. He 
wasted no time in apology or solicitation. His carriage 

453 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

was at the door, packed with cushions. I must be taken 
out of bed, rolled up in rugs and shawls, carried down- 
stairs by my son and my dragoman, deposited in the car- 
riage and driven up to his house. 

"Where there are women-servants," he added, laugh- 
ingly, "and where a cordial American welcome awaits you. 
Doctor and Mrs. Webster, of Haifa, are visiting us, and 
you will be well looked after. And Mrs. Bliss is coming 
over to drink afternoon tea with you. So, we have no 
time to lose." 

That was the beginning of ten days of such luxurious 
rest and continuous petting as I had never expected to 
find out of my native land and my own home. I rallied 
fast under the new conditions of invalidism. In two days, 
I left my bed and lay, for most of the forenoon and all the 
latter part of the day, upon a luxurious lounge in the 
square central hall, from which doors led on aU sides 
to the other parts of the house. The ceilings were twenty 
feet above me; the casements opened down to the tiled 
floors; palms, and other tall plants rounded the corners 
of the hall, and vases of cut flowers fifled the cooled air 
with fragrance. As I lay, I could see trees laden with 
oranges and tangerines in the gardens below; hedges of 
cactus and geraniums, the latter in the fulness of scarlet 
bloom, intersecting the grounds of the coUege and the 
neighboring dwellings. The colony of President and pro- 
fessors was one united family, and they took me — sick, 
and a stranger — into the heart of the household. I recall, 
with pride, that not a day passed that did not bring me a 
call from Doctor Bliss, the genial and honored head of the 
noble institution, while Mrs. Bliss's neighborly attentions 
were maternally tender. I had not been at the hotel in 
the lower town for an hour before she appeared, laden with 
flowers and an offering of "American apples, such as one 
cannot buy in the East." The next day, and for every 

454 



MY FRIENDS THE MISSIONARIES 

day following, before Doctor Schauffler carried me off with 
benevolent violence, she sent to me home-made bread, 
having heard (as was true) that the hotel bread was gen- 
erally sour. 

I looked forward with especial pleasure to the afternoon- 
tea hour. The gathering about my lounge would have 
graced any salon where wits do congregate. The silver- 
haired President never failed to put in an appearance; 
Doctor Post, the distinguished senior of the medical pro- 
fessors, and his charming daughter, afterward my cicerone 
in the visits I paid to Syrian women in their own homes; 
Doctor and Mrs. Eddy, whose daughter was just then sur- 
prising the social world of Constantinople by taking her 
degree in medicine, and with honor; the Jessup brothers 
and their families, known to all readers of church and 
charitable literature by their achievements in the mission- 
field; Doctor and Mrs. Porter, in whose house we had 
celebrated Thanksgiving Day the evening succeeding our 
arrival in Beirut, singing, at the close of the joyous 
festivities, "My country, 'tis of thee," with all the might of 
our lungs, and with hearts aglow with patriotism distance 
and expatriation could not abate — these, with a group of 
younger professors, tutors, and winsome girls, were the 
ministering genii that buoyed me speedily back to robust 
health. 

They gave me a concert, a night or two before our parting. 
The hght in the great hall was a pleasant chiaro-oscuro, 
the music-room opening out of it being brilliantly illumi- 
nated for the performers upon piano, violin, violoncello, 
guitar, and flute. From my sofa I had a full view of them 
all, and through one long window a moon, but four days 
old, looked at us through the orange-trees. 

Is it strange that the chapter in my Home of the Bible, 
headed "Af?/ Friends the Missionaries," was penned with 
grateful memories too tender for speech? 

455 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

We had in Jerusalem another true, hearty, and affec- 
tionate home-welcome. Dr. Selah Merrill, the well-known 
archseologist and Oriental scholar, had then been United 
States Consul at Jerusalem for nine years. The change of 
administration in Washington had put in his place Rev. 
Edwin Wallace, and we found both consuls still in residence 
upon our arrival. It was a happy combination for us. The 
consuls and their wives were settled in the one good hotel 
in the city — the "Grand New" — to which our incompar- 
able dragoman, David Jamal, conducted us. We frater- 
nized at sight. Doctor Merrill and his successor were upon 
most amicable terms, the senior and late incumbent doing 
all in his power to lessen the labors of the novice. The 
fatherly kindness of one, and the gentle deference of the 
junior, were beautiful to behold. We two travellers shared 
the advantages enjoyed by Mr. Wallace in his first visits 
to memorable places in the new home, of which he has 
written eloquently in his book — Jerusalem the Holy. I shall 
always esteem as one of the rarest bits of good-fortune 
which befell us in our wanderings in storied lands, that 
Doctor Merrill was emphatically our "guide, philosopher, 
and friend," during our stay in Southern Syria. He, it 
was, who made out our itinerary when he could not con- 
duct us personally, as he did in our expeditions in and 
about Jerusalem. 

I reckon the four, who made the City of the Great King 
home to us, among the friends to whom my obligations are 
not to be described in words. And what royally "good 
times" we had together! Had it been in the power of 
Mrs. Merrill and Mrs. Wallace to spare me every possible 
inconvenience of tent-life and Eastern transit, I should have 
been lapped in luxury throughout our tour of village and 
desert. 

Of these I have written elsewhere, and at length. 



XLVII 

LUCERNE — GOOD SAMARITANS AND AN ENGLISHMAN — A 
LECTURE TOUR — OHIO AN HOSPITALITY — MR. AND MRS. 
MCKINLEY 

Our homeward journey was performed in a delicious, 
leisurely fashion. We had worked hard for three months, 
collecting material for our prospective books. Once and 
again, when we would fain have had heart and imagination 
free to take in, at their full value, associations connected 
with, and emotions excited by, this or that sacred spot — 
did we remind ourselves of the plaint of the poet, who 
could never give himself up to the enjoyment of nature, 
because he saw, stamped upon sea and sky, mountain 
and river, in huge capitals — "material." Neither of us 
meant to write up Egypt, Rome, Florence, Switzerland, 
and the British Isles. With very much the joyous sense 
of rehef with which children scamper home, when school 
is out, we roamed and lingered to our hearts' content for 
the ten weeks that were left of our vacation. We fell in 
with congenial travelling companions in Egypt, joining 
parties for the run through Greece and Lower Italy. In 
Florence, we were reunited to friends with whom we had 
crossed the ocean, and did not part from them until, in 
Lucerne, they were summoned to Paris, while we planned 
a stay of some days in romantic regions endeared to us by 
former experiences, when the "Boy" of Loitering in Pleas- 
ant Paths was too young to appreciate the grandeur of 
mountain passes, snow-capped heights, azure lakes, and 
historic cantons. 

457 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Anticipation received a cruel blow in the beautiful lake- 
side city in which we had passed the heart of a memorable 
summer, fifteen years before. My son was stricken down 
with appendicitis in Lucerne, and I knew not a human 
creature beside himself in all Switzerland ! By rare good- 
fortune, I recalled the name of a physician with whom my 
husband had become acquainted in our former stay here, 
and sent for him at once. He had retired from the active 
duties of his profession, resigning his practice to his son, 
who was, I learned, at the head of the hospital in Lucerne. 

To my infinite relief, he informed me that there would 
be no need of an operation unless more serious symptoms 
should intervene. I subjoin the addenda to the verdict 
for the benefit of those whom it may concern: 

"You Americans are too fond of the knife! It is not 
always necessary to cut out an inflamed appendix. In 
my hospital we have had four hundred cases of appendi- 
citis within the last ten years, and have operated just forty 
times! The patients recovered without the use of the 
knife." 

If I had ever leaned, never so slightly, to misanthropic 
judgment of my fellow-mortals, I must have been shamed 
out of them by the incidents of the next fortnight of cruel 
anxiety, and what would have been unutterable loneliness 
but for the exceeding and abounding charity of the strangers 
by whom I was surrounded. 

"It is my opinion," pronounced the patient, when, on 
Easter morning, his chamber was fragrant with flowers 
and brightened by cards and messages of cheer and sym- 
pathy — "my decided and well-grounded conviction — that 
this Canton is peopled by the posterity of the Good Samari- 
tan. Even the innkeeper has taken a hand in the mission 
to the traveller on the Jericho Road!" 

The last remark was drawn out by the opening of a 
great box of violets, richly purple, and so freshly gathered 

458 



GOOD SAMARITANS AND AN ENGLISHMAN 

that the odor floated into the air, Hke clouds of incense, 
with the Hfting of the cover. 

And, as a sudden thought struck him: "Have the 
blasted Britishers spoken yet?" 

"No! Their conversation is confined to their own 
party." 

I had brought the like report every day for a week. 
"The blasted Britishers," for whom he had no milder 
name, were a young man, his wife, and sister, who 
were at the end of my table and my nearest neighbors. 
The hotel was very full. A fair sprinkling of Americans, 
a few English, and a mixture of French, Swiss, Germans, 
and Itahans made up a crowd that changed daily in some 
of its features. From the proprietor down to the porter, 
there was not an employe or official connected with the 
house who did not inquire, whenever I showed myself in 
hall or salle h manger, "how the young gentleman was 
getting on?" and express the hope of his early recovery. 
The entire working-staff of the Hotel de Cygne was at 
our feet, and the guests in the house were assiduous in 
offers of assistance and assurances of sympathy. Strangers 
inquired across the table as to the patient's condition, and 
if there were any way in which they could be of service. 
The "B. B.'s" — as the object of this kindly solicitude 
contemptuously abbreviated the appellation — held aloof, 
apparently ignorant of my existence, much less of the 
cause of inquiry and response. They chatted together 
pleasantly, in subdued, refined tones betokening the gentle- 
folk they were, but, for all the sign they gave of conscious- 
ness of the existence of the afflicted Americans, they might 
have been — to quote again from the indignant youth 
above-stairs — "priest and Levite, rolled into one mass of 
incarnate selfishness." 

So matters went on until next to the last day we spent 
in Lucerne. My patient was on his feet in his room, and 

459 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

had been down-stairs twice to drive for an hour, and test 
his strength for the journey to Paris, which he was im- 
patient to begin. I had heard that there was a sleeping- 
car — a "wagon-au lit," as the Swiss put it — upon one train 
each day. This I wished to take, if possible, and to break 
the journey by stopping overnight at least once, in the 
transit of fifteen hours that separated us from the French 
capital. It so chanced that the talk of the "B, B.'s" at 
luncheon that day turned upon this train, and, forgetful, 
for the moment, of their discourteous reserve, I addressed 
the man of the party with — "Pardon me! but can you tell 
me at what hour that train leaves Lucerne, and when it 
reaches Basle?" 

"With great pleasure!" turning an eager face upon me. 
"But may I ask, first, how your son is to-day? We have 
inquired constantly of the proprietor, and of the doctor, 
when we could see him, how he was getting on. We were 
delighted to hear that he is improving, etc., etc., etcetera" — 
while I was getting my breath, and rallying my fluttered 
wits. With this preamble, he proceeded to tell me all he 
knew of trains that were likely to be of service, volunteer- 
ing to make direct inquiries at the station that after- 
noon, and begging to know in what way he could forward 
my purpose. 

When I could escape, I carried a bewildered face and soul 
up to the convalescent. 

Then it was that I made the remark I quoted in a former 
chapter, apropos of New England " incommunicableness" : 

"The ice is broken, and there is warm water under it!" 

We had not finished discussing the idiosyncrasies of Old 
and New England when, half an hour later, there came a 
gentle tap at the door. I opened it, and nearly swooned 
with an access of amazement when I saw the young 
Englishman. 

He had a paper in his hand, and began without preface : 

460 



GOOD SAMARITANS AND AN ENGLISHMAN 

"I have made so bold as to look up the trains, don't you 
know? And — oh, I say" — breaking off as he espied the 
figure on the lounge through the half-opened door — 
"mayn't I come in and see him? We are both young men, 
you know!" 

He was at the sofa by this time, and shaking hands with 
the occupant. "Awfully glad to see you are doing so well! 
Oh, by Jove!" interrupting himself anew, with the frank 
boyishness that had marked his entrance. "I beheve you 
are taller than I!" 

He surveyed the recumbent figure with undisguised 
admiration. 

"Six feet, two-and-a-half, gymnasium measure!" rejomed 
the other, laughing. 

It was impossible to resist the cordial bonhommie of the 
self-invited guest. 

"And I six, three!" complacently. "But a fellow looks 
longer when he is on his back. May I sit down?" drawing 
up a chair for me, and one for himself. "And would it 
tire you to talk a bit about routes and so on? Do you 
think you are really fit for the jaunt?" 

The "bit" of talk lasted an hour, and the invalid bright- 
ened with every minute. The "Britisher" was an army 
man, at home on leave, after ten years in India. He had 
travelled far and used all his senses while en route. He 
was eloquent in praise of India, and so diligently was the 
time improved by both the young men that, in leaving, 
the elder exacted a promise that, when the other should 
visit India, he would apply to him — the "B. B."— for 
letters of introduction to "some fellows" who might be 
of use to him. He gave us his card, lest he might not see 
us again. It bore the name of a fashionable London hotel, 
at which he "hoped to see" his new acquaintance, since 
he was going to London within the month. He did see 
us again, calUng on the morrow to ask if there were any- 

461 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

thing he could do to facihtatc our departure. He brought, 
also, the compliments and good wishes of his wife and 
sister for our safe journey. The schedule of travel he had 
arranged for us was so carefully drawn up that a fool could 
not err therein. 

We never saw or neard from him again. It was not con- 
venient for Bert to call during the brief stay we made in 
London, on the very eve of sailing for home. And we have 
never yet been to India. The '' B. B." seemed not to be able 
to conceive the possibility that any one who could get to 
that end of the earth could refrain from going. 

I have seen enough of the English since to comprehend 
that this was not a phenomenal illustration of native re- 
serve, that waits for the initiative from the other party to 
the meeting, and, like the traveller in the fable of the con- 
test between the wind and sun, throws away the cloak of 
strangerhood as soon as the first step is taken by another. 
I have heard other anecdotes descriptive of a characteristic 
which belies the depth and warmth of the underlying 
heart, but none that bring it more prominently into view. 
It is strange — and interesting — to us of a more emotional 
race, to se3 the sudden leap of the unsealed fountain. 

During the summer and autumn succeeding our return 
to America, I utihzed much of the '^ material" collected in 
the East in a series of lectures delivered in seven different 
States. For two summers preceding my tour abroad, I 
had, in conjunction with Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster, con- 
ducted what we called "Women's Councils", in various 
Summer Schools modelled upon the famous Chautauquan 
AssembUes. I had hardly settled in the peaceful home-nest 
when applications from similar organizations began to 
arrive. Upon former expeditions, my husband, and some- 
times our son, and Mrs. Sangster's nephew, Bert's class- 
mate and chum, had accompanied us, and when the "Coun- 
cil" adjourned, we made up a jolly party to Mackinac 

462 



A LECTURE TOUR 

Island (in which beautiful spot I laid the scene of With the 
Best Intentions), to Niagara Falls, the Adirondacks, and 
divers other summer resorts. Mrs. Sangster had no share 
in my present lecture engagements, and neither my hus- 
band nor son could spare ihe time to accompany me. In 
the comparatively secluded and carefully sheltered life of 
to-day, I marvel at the courage that enabled me to journey 
for thousands of miles, unattended, and to face audiences 
that numbered from one to two thousand women, with 
never a misgiving as to my reception, and perfect security 
from annoyance. Wherever I went, doors and hearts 
were opened to me. But once, in a series that comprised 
twenty towns and villages, was I ever allowed to stay at 
a hotel, and that was for a single night. The friends made 
then are cherished to this hour. 

Time would fail me and the patience of the reader be 
exhausted, were I to attempt even a catalogue of the 
localities in which I talked, as woman to woman, of what I 
had seen and heard in those seven months of wandering 
and study. If I had never loved women before, and held 
in especial and tender regard those of my own country, I 
must have learned the sweet lesson in the unescorted 
itineraries from Syracuse, N.Y., to Chicago; from Vermont 
to Michigan; from Richmond, Va., to Cincinnati. And in 
all the thousands of miles, and in the intercourse with 
tens of thousands of people whose faces I had never seen 
before, I had, in the three lecture seasons in which I took 
part, not one unKind word — received nothing but kindness, 
and that continually. Hospitahty and brotherly (and 
sisterly) love have had new and deeper meaning to me, 
ever since. I permit myself the recital of two " happen- 
ings" in Ohio, that have historic interest in consideration 
of subsequent events. 

After fulfilling a delightful engagement at Monona Lake 
— near Madison, Wisconsin — I set out for Lakeview, Ohio, 

463 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

where I was to hold a Women's Council for the next week, 
beginning Monday. This was Saturday noon, and I was 
to travel all night. Dr. T. De Witt Talmage, whom I had 
seen at Monona Lake, had told me of a branch road con- 
necting the station, at which I was to leave the main line, 
early Sunday morning, with Lakeview. I would reach that 
place, he said, by seven o'clock, and have a quiet Sunday 
to myself. This was preferable to passing it in Chicago or 
any other large town. In the Madison station I was so 
fortunate as to meet Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie and Dr. 
Francis Maurice Egan, at that time Professor of English 
Literature in the Georgetown (R. C.) University, and, sub- 
sequently. United States Minister to Denmark. Both of 
these distinguished men had been lecturing at Monona Lake 
Assembly. The rest of the day passed swiftly and brightly. 
Mr. Mabie left us in Chicago, where we were detained until 
midnight, on account of some delay in incoming trains. 
Doctor Egan, whose spirits never flagged, proposed a walk 
through the illuminated streets, and a supper together, 
which "lark" we enjoyed with the zest of two school- 
children. Then we returned to the waiting train, and 
bade each other "Good-bye." 

The journey had begun so auspiciously that I alighted 
from the sleeper in the early dawn, feeling, what the sport- 
ing Englishman would call "uncommonly fit," and with 
no prevision of what lay before me. 

For not a symptom of the promised branch line was to 
be seen, as far as eye could reach. There were two houses 
at the terminus of my railway journey. One was the usual 
station and freight-house; the other, a neat cottage a 
stone's-throw away, was, I found, the dwelling of the 
station-agent. He was the one and only human thing in 
sight. Beyond lay woods and cultivated fields. 

The man was very civil, but positive in the declaration 
that the branch line connecting with the Assembly grounds 

464 



OHIOAN HOSPITALITY 

was ten miles further on ; also, that no trains ran over it 
on Sunday. As at Monona Lake, admission was denied 
to the public on that day. Otherwise, the ground would 
be overrun by the rabble of curious sight-seers. There 
was no hotel within five miles, and no conveyance to take 
me to it, or to Lakeview. 

The predicament was serious, yet it provoked me to 
mirth. Doctor Talmage's directions to alight at this par- 
ticular point (as he "had done not a week ago"); my cheer- 
ful confidence that the day would be as yesterday, if not 
more abundant in enjoyment; the immediate prospect of 
starvation and discomfort, since all the accommodations 
I could command were that one room of the country sta- 
tion — made up a picture at which any woman must laugh — 
or cry. The station-master looked relieved that I did not 
weep, or whine. When I laughed, he smiled sympatheti- 
cally: 

"If you will sit here for a few minutes," leading the 
way into the room behind us, "I'll step over and talk to 
my wife." 

From that moment I had no apprehension of further 
misadventures. 

If I had indulged a fleeting misgiving, it would have 
been dissipated by the sight of the woman to whom I was 
introduced when I had accepted the invitation to "step 
over" to the neat cottage a few rods down the road. 

It was a veritable cottage — low-browed and cosey, vine- 
draped, and simply but comfortably furnished. The mis- 
tress met me in the door with a cordial welcome, and took 
me into her bedroom to wash away the dust of travel and 
lay off my hat. For I was to breakfast with them, after 
which her husband would get up the horse and buggy, and 
she would drive me over to the Assembly grounds. She 
looked, moved, and spoke like a gentlewoman. Against 
the background of my late predicament, she wore the guise 

465 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of a ministering angel. The breakfast was just what she 
had prepared for her husband. She proved the quahty of 
her breeding there, too, in not hsping a syllable of apology. 
None was required for a meal so well-cooked and served, 
but few women would have let the occasion pass of in- 
forming the stranger within their gates how much better 
they might have done had they been notified of the com- 
ing of "company." On the road she told me that she had a 
season-ticket for the Summer School, and that she had 
attended the sessions regularly during the week that had 
passed since it opened. She was a pretty little body, becom- 
ingly attired, and intelligent beyond her apparent station. 
I was to learn more in time of the minds and manners of the 
average Ohio woman and man, and to be moved to wonder- 
ing admiration thereby. The road, level as a floor for most 
of the way, lay between fields, orchards and vineyards so 
well cultivated that they recalled the husbandry of older 
lands. My companion was au fait to the agricultural in- 
terests of her native State, and^descanted upon the resources 
of the region with modest complacency. The weather was 
delicious, the drive a pleasure. Not until we were in sight 
of the lake, on the shores of which the camp was located, 
did she suggest the possible difficulty of gaining admission 
to the grounds. She had her ticket, which would pass her 
on Sunday, as on week-days. Perhaps I had one? I said, 
"No," frankly. Were the rules very strict? She was 
"afraid they were." It was evident that she had whole- 
some respect for the regulation barring out unlicensed in- 
truders. My credentials, in the form of letters and con- 
tract, were in the trunk the station-master had engaged 
to send over on Monday. Up to this moment I was an 
anonymous wayfarer to my hosts, and I did not care to 
owe their hospitahty to any prestige that might attach 
to an advertised name. So I said we would postpone un- 
easiness until I was actually refused admittance by the 

466 



MR. AND MRS. McKINLEY 

gate-keeper. When he halted us, my companion produced 
her passport, and I offered, as warrant of my ehgibihty, to 
send for Doctor Lewis, the superintendent of the Assembly, 
to vouch for me. He gave me a searching glance, and 
stood back to let us pass. 

I recognized my guardian angel in my audience on Mon- 
day, and made it my business and pleasure to seek her out 
at the conclusion of the lecture. 

" We made up our minds last night, as we were talking 
it over, who you were," she remarked, quietly. "I had 
my list of the speakers, and you were set down for to-day. 
I wished, then, that I had guessed the truth before." 

I did not echo the wish. My first taste of Ohio hospi- 
tahty would have lost the fine flavor that lingers in my 
memory, like the aroma of old Falernian wine. A duchess 
of high degree might have taken lessons in breeding and 
Christian charity from the station-keeper's wife. 

Daring the week spent at Lake view I had an opportu- 
nity, which I prize now beyond expression, of meeting Mr. 
McKinley, then the Governor of Ohio. He passed a day 
at the principal hotel of the place with his wife, and visited 
the Assembly. I was invited, with other visitors, to dine 
with him, and afterward to drive into the country with 
himself and Mrs. McKinley. 

"The future President of the United States!" a friend 
had said to me when I told her of the projected drive. 
• "I don't think so," was my answer. "But a good man 
and an honest pohtician." 

As he lifted his invalid wife into the carriage, a- packet 
of letters was handed to me. 

In taking his place on the front seat he begged me to 
open them: 

"Home letters should never be kept waiting." 

" I will avail myself of your kind permission so far as to 
look into one," I answered. " It is the daily bulletin from 

31 467 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

my husband. A glance at the first paragraph will tell me 
how matters are at home," 

"A daily bulletin!" repeated Mr. McKinley, as I refolded 
the epistle after the satisfactory glance. 

"Yes — and we have been married nearly forty years!" 

"A commendable example — " he began, when his wife 
caught him up: 

"Which he does not need! He never fails to write to 
me every day when he is away ; but when he was in Wash- 
ington, some years ago, and I was not well enough to go 
with him, he telegraphed every morning to know how I 
was, besides writing a long letter to me in the afternoon." 

Laughingly putting the remark aside, he leaned forward 
to direct my attention to a row of hills on the horizon, and 
to talk of certain historical associations connected with 
that part of the State. She resumed the topic, awhile later, 
descanting in a low tone upon his unwearied regard for 
her health, his tender sohcitude, his skiU as a nurse, and 
similar themes, drawn on by my unfeigned interest in the 
story, until he checked her, with the same light laugh: 

"Ida, my dear! you are making Mrs. Terhune lose the 
finest points in the landscape we brought her out to 
admire." 

"Permit me to remind you that there are moral beauties 
better worth my attention," retorted I. 

He lifted his hat, with a bright look that went from my 
face to dwell upon that of the fragile woman opposite him, 
with affectionate appreciation, and full confidence that I 
would comprehend the feeling that led her to praise him 
— a flashing smile, I despair of describing as it deserves. It 
transfigured his face into beauty I can never forget. In 
all my thoughts of the man who became the idol of his 
compatriots, dying, like a martyr - hero, with a plea for 
mercy for the insane assassin upon his lips, I recur to that 
incident in my brief personal acquaintanceship with him, 

468 



MR. AND MRS. McKINLEY 

as a revelation of what was purest and sweetest in a nature 
singularly strong and gentle. 

In relating the little by-play to my dear friend, Mrs. 
Waite, the widow of the Chief -Justice, then Hving in Wash- 
ington, I said that it was a pity to see a man in Mr. 
McKinley's exalted and responsible position tied to the 
arm-chair of a hopeless invaUd, who could contribute noth- 
ing to his usefulness in any relation of life. 

"He owes more to her than the pubhc will ever sus- 
pect," was the reply. "We knew him from a boy, and 
watched his early struggles upward. His wife was his 
guiding star, his right hand. She was, then, a woman of 
unusual personal and mental gifts, more ambitious for him 
than he was for himself. My husband often said that she 
was Mr. McKinley's inspiration. Those who have never 
known her except as the fragile, nerveless creature she is 
now, cannot imagine what she was before the deaths of 
her children and her terrible illness left her the wreck 
you see. But he does not forget what she was, and what 
she did for him." 

I treasured the tribute gratefully, and I never failed to 
quote it when I heard — as was frequent during Mr. McKin- 
ley's administration — contemptuous criticism of the help- 
less, sickly woman — the poor shade of the First Lady of 
the Land — whose demands upon his time and care were 
unremittent and heavy. He was held up to the world by 
his eulogists as a Model Husband, a Knight of To-day, 
whose devotion never wavered. As my now sainted 
mentor said, few of the admiring multitude guessed at 
his debt of gratitude and at his chivalrous remembrance 
of the same. 



XLVIII 

THE CLOUDS RETURN AFTER THE RAIN — ABROAD AGAIN — 
HEALING AND HEALTH — IDYLLIC WINTER IN FLORENCE 

What one of Doctor Terhune's biographers has alluded 
to as his "splendid vitality," .had been cruelly taxed by 
his professional labors in his first charge in Brooklyn. 
With a strong man's aversion to the acknowledgment of 
physical weakness, he had fought, with heroic courage and 
reserve, the inroads of a disease that was steadily sapping 
his constitution and vigor. None except his physician and 
myself dreamed of the gnawing pain that was never quiet 
during his waking hours, and robbed the nights of rest. 
The services of Sunday left him as weak as a child, and 
stretched him upon the rack all of that night. When, the 
work he had assigned to himself soon after accepting the 
pastorate of the Bedford Avenue Church having been ac- 
complished, he resigned the position, and quoted his physi- 
cian's advice that he should take a few months of rest and 
change of scene — the information was couched in terms so 
light that, with the exception of two or three of his chosen 
and most faithful friends, his parishioners had no suspicion 
of his real condition. The public press hazarded the wild- 
est and most absurd guesses at the causes that had stirred 
the nest he had builded wisely and well during the last 
seven years. 

Perhaps the theory that amused us most, and flew most 
widely from the mark, was "that his wife — known to the 
public as ' Marion Harland ' — took no interest in church- 

470 



THE CLOUDS RETURN AFTER THE RAIN 

work — in fact, never attended church at all." My class 
of forty-four splendid " boys" — the youngest being twenty- 
one years of age — begged to be allowed to look up the 
imaginative reporter and, as the Springfield member of the 
Church Militant had proposed, "fire him out." Calmer 
counter-statements from older heads, and hearts as loyal, 
met the assertion in print and in private. To me, it 
weighed less than a grain of dust in the greater soHcitude 
that engrossed my thoughts. For, in a week after the 
formal resignation of his office, the patient sufferer was 
under the surgeon's knife. 

They called it "a minor operation," and enjoined com- 
plete rest, for a month or so, that ought to bring recu- 
peration of energies so sadly depleted that those who knew 
him best were urgent in the entreaty that the mandate 
should be obeyed. He "rested" in the blessed quiet of 
Sunnybank for a couple of months; then set out for a 
leisurely jaunt westward. He had been invited to preach 
in Omaha, and thought that he would "take a look at the 
country" which he had never visited. He got no further 
than Chicago, falling in love with the warm-hearted people 
of a church which he agreed to supply for "a few weeks." 
The weeks grew into seven months of active and satisfying 
work among his new parishioners. Our eldest daughter 
was with him part of the time, and I went to him for a visit 
of considerable length, returning home with the sad con- 
viction, deep down in my soul, that to accept the offered 
"call*' to a permanent pastorate would be suicidal. He 
could never do half-way work, and he loved the duties of 
his profession with a love that never abated. By the be- 
ginning of the next summer, he was forced to admit to 
himself that his physical powers were inadequate to the 
task laid to his hand. Yet, on the way home, he was lured 
into agreeing to supply the pulpit of a friend, a St. Louis 
clergyman, during the vacation of the latter, preaching 

471 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

zealously and eloquently for five weeks, and this in the heat 
of a Missourian summer. 

It was but a wreck of his old, buoyant self that he 
brought back to us. Confident in his abihty to rise above 
"temporary weakness," he insisted that "Sunnybank and 
home-rest were all he needed to set him up again as good 
as new." 

I had said once, jestingly, in his hearing, after his quick 
recovery from a short and sharp attack of illness: 

" It is hard to kill a Terhune. Nothing is really effectual 
except a stroke of lightning, and that will paralyze but one 
side. None of them die under ninety!" 

He reminded me of the foolish speech, many and many 
a time, in the weeks that dragged themselves by us who 
watched the steady ebb of vital forces and the pitiable 
failure of all remedial agencies. He was the finest horse- 
man I have ever known, and, as I have already said, sat 
his saddle as if he were a part of the spirited animal he be- 
strode. "Let me once get into the saddle again, and all 
will be right," had been his hopeful prognostication in every 
illness prior to this mysterious disorder. He mounted his 
horse a few times after he got home, and rode for a mile or 
two, but listlessly and with pain. Then he ceased to ask 
for the old-time tonic that had acted like a magic potion 
upon the exhausted body, in answer to the indomitable 
spirit. The spring of desire and courage was not broken, 
but it bent more and more visibly daily, until it was a 
gray wraith of the former man that lay, hour after hour, 
upon the library sofa, uncomplaining and patient, utterly 
indifferent to things that once brought light to the eyes 
and ring to the voice. Even his voice — a marvel up to 
seventy-five, for sweetness, resonance, and strength — qua- 
vered and broke when he forced himself to speak. 

In this, our sore and unprecedented extremity, we who 
watched him took counsel together and urged him to 

472 



THE CLOUDS RETURN AFTER THE RAIN 

go to the city and consult Doctor McBurney, the ablest 
specialist and surgeon in New York, and with no superior 
in America. The patient offered feeble opposition. It 
was easier to do as we wished, than to argue the point. 
Our eldest daughter was living in New York, and not far 
from the surgeon. We lost no time in securing an appoint- 
ment, and the surgeon was prompt in decision. "The 
minor operation," in which he had had no hand, was well 
enough as far as scalpel and probe had gone, but the seat 
of the malady was left untouched. There was a malig- 
nant internal growth which had already poisoned the blood. 
To delay a "major operation" a fortnight, would be to for- 
feit the one and only chance of life. It might already be 
too late. 

In three days the almost dying man was in the Pres- 
byterian Hospital, and under the knife. 

I hasten past the month that followed. With clean 
blood, a temperate life, and a superb constitution as his 
backers, my brave husband stood once more upon his feet, 
and was apparently upon the highroad to recovery. When 
he was restored to our home-circle in season for the Christ- 
mas festivities, we rejoiced without a prevision of possible 
further ill from the hateful cause, now forever removed, as 
we fondly believed. Early in January, I had a sudden 
and violent hemorrhage from the lungs, superinduced, we 
were told by the eminent specialist summoned immedi- 
ately, by the long-continued nervous strain and general 
weakening of the entire system. 

Doctor Terhune took me to the train when I set out upon 
the southern trip prescribed strenuously by consulting 
practitioners. My dearest and faithful brother was to 
meet me on the last stage of my easy journey. When the 
late invalid waved his hat to me from the platform as the 
train began to move, I noted with pride and devout grati- 
tude, how clear were his blue eyes, how healthful his com- 

473 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

l)lexion, and, looking back as far as I could catch sight of 
him, that his step had the elasticity of a boy of twenty. 

He wrote daily to me, and in the old, lively fashion, for 
three weeks. Then a letter dictated by him to Christine 
told of a boil upon his wrist that hindered pen-work. I 
"was not to be uneasy. It was probably a wholesome 
working out of the virus of original sin. He would be all 
the better when the system was freed from it." 

I wrote at once, begging that nothing might be concealed 
from me, and setting a day for my return. 

A telegram from my husband forbade me to stir until 
the time originally named as the limit of my visit. And 
the daily letters continued to arrive. One, I recollect, 
began : 

"A second rising, farther up the arm, is 'carrying on the 
work of purification.' So says the poor Pater, with a rueful 
glance at his bandaged hand and arm. If it were only the 
left, and not the right hand, he would not have to put up 
with this unworthy amanuensis," 

Those six weeks in Richmond stand out in memory like 
sunlighted peaks seen between clouds that gathered below 
and all around it. My brother's wife, the cherished girl- 
friend of our Newark life, was so far from well that we 
enacted the roles of semi-invalids in company. Sometimes 
we breakfasted in her room, sometimes in mine, as the 
humor seized us. I lounged in one easy-chair, and she in 
another, all the forenoon, making no pretence of occupa- 
tion. Had we not been straitly commanded to do nothing 
but get well? We drove out in company, every moderately 
fine day. When we tired of talking (which was seldom), 
we had our books. I sent to a book-store for a copy of 
Barrie's Margaret Ogilvie — the matchless tribute of the 
brilliant son to the peasant woman from whom he drew 
all that was noblest and highest in himself — and gave it to 

474 



THE CLOUDS RETURN AFTER THE RAIN 

my fellow-invalid to read. Then we talked it over — we 
two mothers — tenderly and happily, as befitted the parents 
of grown children who were fulfilling our best hopes for 
them. I repeated to her once, in the twilight of a winter 
afternoon, as we sat before the blazing fire of soft coal 
that tinted the far corners of the library a soft, dusky 
red — a stanza of Ehzabeth Akers Allen's Rock Me to Sleep, 
Mother: 

"Over my heart in the days that have flown, 
No love like mother-love ever has shone; 
No other worship abides and endures, 
Faithful unselfish, and patient like yours." 

"That is one of my husband's favorite songs," I said. 
"I often sing it to him and to Bert in the twilights at 
home." And with a little laugh, I added: "My boy asked 
me once to emphasize 'patient.' He says that is the 
strongest characteristic of the mother's love." 

"They repay us for it all!" was the fervent reply. 

And I returned as feelingly, " Yes, a thousandfold." 

She was ever the true, unselfish woman, generous in im- 
pulse and in action, sweet and sound to the very core of her 
great heart. We had loved each other without a shadow 
of changing for over thirty years. In all our intercourse 
there is nothing upon which I dwell with such fondness 
as on the days that slipped by brightly and smoothly, 
that late January and early February. If I observed 
with regret that I rallied from my sudden seizure more 
rapidly than she threw off the languor and loss of appe- 
tite which, she assured us, over and over, "meant next to 
nothing " — I was not seriously uneasy at what I saw. 
She had not been strong for the last year. Time would 
restore her, surely. She had just arisen on the morning 
of my departure, when I went into her room to say, "Good- 

475 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

bye." She smiled brightly as I put my arms about her 
and bade her, "Hurry up and return my visit." 

"You will see me before long," she said, confidently. 
"As soon as I can bear the journey I shall go to Newark. 
My native air always brings healing on its wings," 

My beloved friend Mrs. Waite had passed from earth, 
six months before. The visit I paid at her house, on the 
way back to New York, was the first I had made there 
since the beauty of her presence was withdrawn. 

On the morning after my arrival I had a long letter from 
Christine. It began ominously: 

"I have a confession to make. Father has been far more 
indisposed than I would let you think. Do not blame me. I 
have acted under orders from him and from the doctor. 
Neither would hear of your recall. Not that this relapse is 
a dangerous matter. The 'boils' were a return of the old 
trouble. He has not left his bed for a fortnight. I thought 
it best to prepare you for seeing him there." 

An hour later I had a telegram from my brother: 
"M. is decidedly worse. We apprehend heart-failure." 

Again I say, I would shorten the recital of how the clouds 
returned after the rain which we had believed would clear 
the atmosphere. 

I was seated at the bedside of my husband, who aroused 
himself with difficulty to speak to me, as one shakes off a 
stupor, relapsing into slumber with the murmured welcome 
on his fevered lips, when a dispatch was brought to me 
from Richmond. 

My sister-in-love had died that afternoon. 

Five months to a day, from the beginning of my hus- 
band's serious illness, he was brought down-stairs in the 
arms of a stalwart attendant, and lifted into a carriage 
for his first ride. We drove to the neighboring Central 

476 



THE CLOUDS RETURN AFTER THE RAIN 

Park, and were threading the leafy avenues before the con- 
valescent offered to speak. Then the tone was of one dazed 
into disbelief of what was before his eyes: 

"The last time I was out of doors, the ground was cov- 
ered with snow. I am like those that dream. I never 
knew until now what a beautiful place the world is!" 

It was glorious in July verdure when we got him back 
to Sunnybank. There was no talk now of the saddle, and 
the briefest of drives fatigued him to faintness. What- 
ever the doctors might say as to the ultimate elimination 
of the hidden poison they had found so difficult to drive 
out, watchers, who had more at stake in the issue of his 
protracted illness, failed to see the proof that skill had 
effected what they claimed. After the glow of pleasure at 
getting home again subsided, he relapsed into the old lassi- 
tude and sad indifference to what was going on about 
him; his eyes were dull; his tone was lifeless; he seemed 
to have forgotten that he had ever had appetite for 
food. 

At last, one day, as I sat fanning him, while he lay on 
the wicker sofa on the vine-clad veranda, regarding neither 
lake nor mountain, and smiling wanly at my chatter of the 
seven birds'-nests in the honeysuckle, from which the last 
fledgling had been coaxed away by their parents that 
morning — an inspiration came to me. I laid my hand on 
his to make sure that he would be aroused to listen, and 
stooped to the ear that shared in the deadening of the rest 
of the body. 

"What do you say to going abroad again — and very 
soon?" 

He opened his eyes wide, lifting his head to look directly 
at me. 

"What did you say?" 

I repeated the query. 

He lay back with closed lids for so long I thought he 

477 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

was asleep. Then an echo of his own voice, as it was in 
the olden time, said: 

" I think, if I could once more hear the rush of the waves 
against the keel of the steamer, and feel the salt air on my 
face, it would bring me back to life. But — where's the 
use of dreaming of it? I shall never be strong enough to 
go on board." 

"You will, and you shall! You saved my life by taking 
me abroad. We will try the efficacy of your own pre- 
scription." 

I think that not one of the crowd of friends who came 
down to the steamer to see us off, had any hope of seeing 
again his living face. I heard, afterward, that they said 
as much among themselves, when the resolutely cheerful 
farewells had been spoken, and they stood watching the 
vessel's slow motion out of the dock, the eyes of all fixed 
upon one figure recumbent in a deck-chair, a thin hand re- 
sponding to the fluttering handkerchiefs above the throng 
on the end of the pier. 

Our son was there with his betrothed, who wrote to me 
afterward that he was ''depressed to despondency," Belle, 
with her husband and boys, would occupy Sunnybank 
while we were away. Christine had insisted that it was 
not kind or safe to leave to me the sole care of the invalid. 
In the three weeks that elapsed between the "inspiration" 
and our embarkation, the brave girl had wound up all 
affairs that would detain her in America, and made her- 
self and two sons ready to accompany us. The party was 
completed by the faithful maid who had nursed her chil- 
dren from infancy, and who was quite competent to aid 
me in nursely offices to the patient for whose sake the 
desperate expedition was undertaken. 

He averred, in later life, that he felt an impulse of new 
life with the first revolution of the paddle-wheel. Certain 
it is that he showed signs of rall3dng before twenty-four 

478 



ABROAD AGAIN 

hours had passed, spending all the daylight hours upon 
deck, and, before the voyage was half over, joining in our 
promenades from bow to stern. Always an excellent sailor, 
he drank in the sea-breeze as he might have quaffed so 
much nectar. The only complaint that escaped him was 
that," whereas he had been promised an eleven days' voyage, 
we steamed up the Clyde on the afternoon of the ninth day," 

A series of jaunts in Scotland and England was the prel- 
ude to our settling down in Florence for the winter. 

Had I no other reason to urge for my deep and abiding 
love for that fairest and dearest of Italian cities, it would 
suffice me to recollect the unutterable peace and full con- 
tent of that memorable half-year. 

Friends, old and new, clustered about us, and lent the 
charm of home to the cosey apartment in Via San Giuseppe, 
where the gentle flow of domestic life was bright with the 
shining of present happiness and rekindled hope of the 
future. We learned to know "La Bella" at her best in 
those halcyon days. The boys were at a day-school ; thanks 
to our efficient "padrona, " there were no household anx- 
ieties, and we seniors were free to enjoy to the full all that 
makes up the inestimable riches of the storied city. 

Doctor Terhune and I claimed the privilege of convales- 
cent and custodian, in declining to accept invitations to 
evening functions, thus securing opportunity for what we 
loved far better than the gayest of "entertainments" — 
long, quiet hours spent in our sitting-room "under the 
evening lamp," I, busy with needle- work or knitting, while 
he read aloud, after the dear old fashion, works on Floren- 
tine history, art, and romance, all tending to enfold us 
more closely with the charmed atmosphere of the region. 
It would be laughable to one who has never fallen under 
the nameless spell of Florence to know how often, that 
season, we repeated aloud, as the book was laid aside for 
the night: 

479 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

"With dreamful eyes 
My spirit lies 
Under the walls of Paradise." 

Letters from home were frequent and regular. Much 
was happening across the water while we revelled in our 
dreams. The Spanish War was on. It was begun and 
ended during our peace-fraught exile. In January, our 
boy took unto himself the young wife to whom he had been 
troth-plight for a year, and we were the easier in mind for 
the knowledge that this, the last of our unwedded bairns, 
was no longer without a home of his own. 

In the spring we travelled at pleasure through Switzer- 
land and Belgium, and so to England— my husband and I 
now in the solitude a deux beloved by congenial souls. 
Christine and her sons were left in Switzerland for a longer 
tour of that country. 

Still wandering, Hngering, and dreaming, in the long, 
delicious calm succeeding the darkest and stormiest period 
our united lives were ever to know, we revisited English 
villages and towns, and made acquaintance in Scotland 
with new and enchanting scenes, until the September day 
when we took passage from Glasgow for New York. 

We steamed into our harbor on Sunday afternoon, just 
as the news of peace between the warring nations was 
acclaimed through the megaphone to incoming craft, and 
thundered from the mouths of rejoicing cannon. 



XLIX 

THE GOING-OUT OF A YOUNG LIFE — PRESENT ACTIVITIES 
— " LITERARY HEARTHSTONES ' ' — GRATEFUL REMINIS- 
CENCES 

As upon our return from foreign lands nearly twenty 
years before this home-coming, Sunnybank was now our 
pied a terre. Our daughter, Mrs. Van de Water, and her 
family had occupied it during our absence. It was, there- 
fore, not merely swept and garnished for our reception, 
but the spirit of Home, sweet, radiant, and indescribable, 
was in full possession. We were settled in the nest within 
an hour after we drove up to the open door, A week later, 
the happy circle was widened by the arrival of our son and 
his young wife from the Adirondacks. A second attack 
of appendicitis had made an operation imperatively neces- 
sary. It was performed in July, and as soon as the patient 
was strong enough to travel, he was sent to the mountains 
for recuperation. The pair were our guests for four weeks. 
Then they returned to town to prepare for the house- 
keeping upon which they had planned to enter in October. 
Happy letters, telling of the preparations going briskly 
forward, and filled with domestic details, than which noth- 
ing in the wide world was more fascinating to the little 
wife, reminded us of the contented cooings of mating 
pigeons, or, as I told the prospective housewife, of the 
purring of the kittens she loved to fondle under the honey- 
suckles of the veranda, while with us. 

On October 5th an unexpected telegram brought the 

481 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

news of the premature birth of a baby daughter, and that 
''mother and child were doing well." Four days later, a 
second dispatch summoned us to New York. The tiny 
girl was but four days old when her gentle mother passed 
quietly out of the life, so rich in love and hope that, up 
to the hour when she laid herself down cheerfully upon 
her couch of pain, she was, to use her own words, "almost 
frightened at her own happiness." 

She was married on January 10, 1898. We bore her to 
her last home October 12th of the same year. She sleeps 
in the quiet "God's Acre," back of the old colonial church 
in Pompton, in the heart of the fairest of New Jersey 
valleys. A peaceful spot it is, cradled by the everlasting 
hills. There were but three graves in our family plot 
when we took her there. There are five, now. 

We spent that winter in the city, and our boy was again 
one of our small household. But for the care and the 
blessed comfort of the baby daughter, the light and life 
of hearts and house, we might have fancied the events of 
the last five years a dream, and that we were once more 
the busy trio with whom time had sped so swiftly and 
brightly while "Bert" was in college. We were busy now 
as then. Doctor Terhune preached with tolerable regular- 
ity in different churches, and he was ever a diligent stu- 
dent. Bert wrought faithfully in his chosen profession of 
journahsm, and I accepted in, 1901, the charge of a Wom- 
an's Syndicate page established by The North American, in 
Philadelphia. I had never been idle. Month after month, 
work was laid to my hands that pleased my taste, and occu- 
pied all the time I could devote to hterary tasks. When 
I agreed to take on the new burden, it was with no fore- 
casting of what proportions it might assume. 

"What do these women write to you about?" asked the 
proprietor of the paper under the auspices of which the 
syndicate was carried on. 

482 



PRESENT ACTIVITIES 

I answered, laughingly, "Everything — from Marmalade 
to Matrimony." 

When he put the question, I was representing the need 
of an assistant, since I was getting twenty letters per 
diem. Four years later, a secretary and a stenographer 
shared the labor of keeping in touch with writers who 
poured in upon my desk an average mail of one hundred 
letters a day. Two years afterward, the average was over 
a thousand a week. 

I have been asked often why I expend energies and fill 
my days in what my critics are pleased to depreciate 
as "hack-work." Nobody believes my assertion that I 
heartily enjoy being thus brought into intimate associa- 
tion with the women of America. The Syndicate has ex- 
tended its territory into twenty-five States, and it is still 
growing. Women, boys, and girls, and housefathers — no 
less than housemothers — tell me of their lives, their suc- 
cesses, their failures, their trials, and their several prob- 
lems. From the mighty mass of correspondence I select 
letters dealing with topics of general interest, or that seem 
to call for free and friendly discussion, and base upon them 
daily articles for the Syndicate public. Thousands of let- 
ters contain stamps for replies by mail. Out of this germ 
of "hack-work" has grown "The Helping-Hand Club," an 
informal organization, with no "plant" except my desk 
and the postal service that transports applications for 
books, magazines, and such useful articles as correspond- 
ents know will be welcome to the indigent, the shut-in, 
the aged, charitable societies and missions in waste 
places. Quietly, and without parade, our volunteer agents 
visit the needy, and report to us. We distribute, by cor- 
respondence, thousands of volumes and periodicals an- 
nually; we bring together supply and demand, "without 
money and without price," and in ways that would appear 
ridiculous to some, and incredible to many. 
32 483 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

"For Love's Sake" is our motto, and it is caught up 
eagerly, from Canada to California. "The Big Family," they 
call themselves — these dear co-workers of mine whose 
faces I shall never see on earth. When, as happens daily, 
I read, "Dear Mother of us all," from those I have been 
permitted to help in mind, body, or estate, I thank the 
Master and take courage. 

After eight years' active service in the field so strangely 
appointed to me that I cannot but recognize (and with 
humble gratitude) the direct leading of the Divine Hand, 
I say, frankly, that I have never had such fulness of satis- 
faction in any other sphere of labor. 

"But it is not Literature!" cried a friend to me, the 
other day, voicing the sentiment of many. 

"No," I answered, "but it is Influence, and that of 
the best kind." 

I have, with all this, made time — or it has been made 
for me — to write half a dozen books in the last ten years. 

Where Ghosts Walk (1898) was a joy in the writing, as 
was the collection of material. It reproduces for me — as I 
turn the pages, in maternal fashion, lingering upon a scene 
here, and snatching a phrase there — our strayings in storied 
climes, rambles into enchanted nooks untrodden by the 
conventional tourist, but full of mystery and charm for 
us. In those dim paths I still walk with the ghosts that 
were once visible and sentient things like ourselves. 

Literary Hearthstones (1899-1902) was, even more em- 
phatically, a labor of delight. I had made studies of Char- 
lotte Bronte and Hannah More, of John Knox and Will- 
iam Cowper, in the homes and haunts they glorified into 
shrines for the reading and the religious world. Other 
hallowed names are yet on my memorandum-book, and in 
my portfolio are the notes made in other homes and 
haunts, and pictures collected for the illustrations of four 
more volumes of the series. 

484 



"LITERARY HEARTHSTONES" 

If I live and hold my strength and health of body and of 
mind, I shall, please God, complete the tale of worthies I 
have singled out for study. If not — they are yet mine 
own brain-children. None may rob me of the pleasure of 
having and of holding them — until death us do part. 

I should be ungrateful, and do my own feelings a wrong, 
were I to fail, in this connection, to acknowledge my obliga- 
tions to those who kindly seconded my efforts to accumu- 
late the material for the Hearthstones. 

Our pilgrimages to Haworth, Olney, Wrington, and 
Edinburgh, are starred in the reminiscence by hospitable 
intent and deed, by such real sympathy in my mission, 
and friendly aid in the prosecution of my design, that I 
cannot pass them over with casual mention. 

For Charlotte Bronte I had, since my early girlhood, 
nourished admiration that ripened into reverence, as I 
read with avidity every page and Hne relating to the mar- 
vellous sisters. I had conned her books until I knew them, 
from cover to cover. Her dramatis personoB were friends 
more familiar to the dreaming girl than our next-door 
neighbors. It was a bitter disappointment to me that the 
unforeseen miscarriage of our plans frustrated my longing 
to go to Haworth, at our first visit to the Old World. So, 
when my son and I set out for our Eastern trip, Haworth 
stood first upon our memorandum of places that must be 
seen in England. I had letters from four men who had 
engaged to faciUtate my attempts to enter the Parsonage. 
One and all, they assured me that I would find the door 
inhospitably closed in ray face. Nevertheless, they ad- 
vised me to go to Haworth, and put up at "that resort of 
the thirsty — the Black Bull." Thus one of the quartette, 
and who had lately published a book on the Brontes : 

"The present incumbent of the parish is an ogre, a verita- 
ble dragon!" he went on to say. "He savagely refused to 
let me set foot upon his threshhold, and he turns hundreds 

485 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of pilgrims away empty every year. But go to Haworth, 
by all means ! Put up at the ancient hostelry ; walk about 
the old stone house and tell well its windows, and take 
pleasure in Emily's moors. The dragon has restored ( ?) 
the Bronte church, and consigned the remains of the won- 
derful family to a genteel crypt under the renovated pave- 
ment. All the same, go to Haworth! The hills and the 
moors and the heather are unchanged." 

In my Life of Charlotte Bronte, I have related how I 
fared in the pilgrimage that stands out clearly in my mem- 
ory as one of the sunniest spots of that memorable seven 
months' tour. I have not told how simple and direct 
were the means by which I gained the fulfilment of 
my desires. Within an hour after we had registered our 
names in the shabby book kept for guests and transients 
at the Black Bull, I wrote a note to Mr. Wade, the rector 
of Haworth Church, asking permission to "stand, for a 
few minutes, within the doors of the house that had been 
the home of Charlotte and Emily Bronte." I added that 
I should not blame him if he objected to the intrusion of 
strangers upon domestic privacy. 

The messenger returned speedily with word that Mr. 
Wade had that hour returned from London, and that he 
could not then write a note. He would, however, be 
happy to see me at the Rectory on the morrow (Sunday), 
and would write in the morning, naming the hour for our 
call. His note came while we were at breakfast, to say 
that he would be at Hberty to receive us between services. 
We attended morning service, but, when it was over, re- 
frained from making ourselves known to the rector, hnger- 
ing, instead, in the church to see the tablet above the 
Bronte vault, and the fine window, set in the restored wall 
by an anonymous American, "To the glory of God, and in 
pleasant memory of Charlotte Bronte." Emerging from the 
church, with the intention of strolling up to the Parsonage, 

486 



GRATEFUL REMINISCENCES 

we were met by Mr. Wade, who had gone home, expecting 
to find us there, and was on his way to the inn to look us 
up. His cordial hand-clasp and genial smile were so op- 
posed to our preconceptions of the "dragon," that we ex- 
changed furtive glances of rehef. He took us back to the 
Parsonage, and showed us everything we had wished to 
see, with much we had not thought of, telling us, in the 
same hospitable way, that, although he was the only mem- 
ber of the family at home that day, he would be happy to 
have us partake of a bachelor's luncheon. When we de- 
clined, gratefully, he accompanied us to the church, and 
unlocked the case in which is kept the register of Charlotte 
Bronte's marriage, signed by herself — the last time she 
wrote her maiden name. 

Several letters passed between us, in the course of the 
next four years, and he opened to me, on our second visit 
to Haworth, in 1898, unexpected avenues of information 
respecting her whose biography I was writing, which were 
of incalculable value to me. When he retired from the 
active duties of his profession to Hm'ley, in another county, 
he wrote to me a long, interesting letter, enclosing a copy 
of the resolutions passed by the Yorkshire parish he had 
served faithfully for forty-seven years. 

Besides the precious stock of building "material" for 
the construction of my story of Charlotte, which I could 
have gained in no other way than through his kindly offices, 
this odd friendship taught me a lesson of faith in my kind, 
"and of distrust of hearsay evidence and of popular disfavor, 
that will last me forever. I dedicated the biography to 
"Rev. J. Wade, for forty-seven years incumbent of Ha- 
worth, in cordial appreciation of the unfailing courtesy 
and kindly aid extended by him to the American stranger 
within his gates." 

A dedication that brought me many letters of surprised 
dissent from English and American tourists, and writers 

487 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

whose experience was less pleasant than my own. I tell 
the tale, in brief, as an act of simple justice to a much- 
abused man. 

"You have been told that I am a vandal and a bear," 
he said to me on that Sunday. "I found church and Par- 
sonage almost in ruins. I was not appointed to this parish 
as the curator of a museum, but to do my best for the cure 
of souls. When I tell you that, for ten years after Mr. 
Bronte's death, the average number of sight-seers who 
called at the Parsonage was three thousand a year, and 
that they still mount up to a third of that number, you 
may be more lenient in judgment than the touring public 
and the press proved themselves to be." 

From Rev. Mr. Langley — incumbent of Olney, and resi- 
dent in the quaintly beautiful parsonage that was the 
home of Lady Austin, Cowper's friend and disciple — we met 
with courtesy as fine. And in seeking details of Han- 
nah More's private hfe, I found an able and enthusias- 
tic assistant in Rev. Mr. Wright, of Wrington, in the 
church-yard of which the " Queen of Barley wood " is 
buried. 

Cherished reminiscences are these, which neither the mists 
of years nor the clouds of sorrow have dimmed. In dwell- 
ing upon them, as I near the close of my annals of an 
every-day woman's Hfe, I comprehend what the Psalmist 
meant when he said, "They have been my song in the 
house of my pilgrimage." 

Perhaps I erred in writing, " every-day life." Or, it may be 
because so few women have recorded the lights and shadows 
of their lives as frankly and as fully as I am doing, that I 
am asking myself whether it may not be that the chequered 
scene I survey from the hill-top — which gives me on clear 
days a fine view of the Delectable Mountains — has been 
exceptionally eventful, as it has been affluent in God's 
choicest gifts of home-joys and home-loves, and in oppor- 

488 



GRATEFUL REMINISCENCES 

tunities of proving, by word and in deed, my love for fellow- 
travellers along the King's Highw9,y. 

The reader who has followed me patiently, because 
sympathetically, from the beginning of the narrative, will 
comprehend, through the depth of that sympathy, why I 
now leave to other pens the recital of what remains to be 
said. The hands that guided the pen were tender of touch, 
the hearts were true that dictated the report of the Golden 
Wedding and the abstract of a noble life, now developing 
throughout the ages into the stature of the Perfect Man. 
The voluntary tributes they combined to offer are dear 
beyond expression, to wife and children and to a great 
host of friends. 



APPENDIX 

THE REV. EDWARD PAYSON TERHUNE, D.D. 

BY REV. JOSEPH R. DURYEE, D.D, 

Permit one who has loved Doctor Terhune for fifty years, 
to pay tribute to his character and outHne his attainments. 

He was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, November 22, 
1830. It does not seem possible that this was his birth-year, 
he was so vigorous and his spirit was so youthful to the end. 
The best things in life were his rich inheritance. His father. 
Judge John Terhune, for fifty-four years an elder in the Pres- 
byterian Church, was a rare man, and for generations the 
family had led in the moral and material development of New 
Jersey. He was named for Edward Payson, his father's friend, 
a saintly Christian leader still remembered in the American 
church. Few boys have had a happier childhood. It was 
partly spent with his grandmother in Princeton. Her house 
was a centre of influence. Doctors Alexander, Hodge, Miller, 
and other professors were her intimate friends, and the boy 
was welcomed at their homes. Members of their families 
were life-long companions. Entering Rutgers, he was grad- 
uated in the class of 1850 with Doctors Elmendorf and Shep- 
erd, Judges Lawrence and Ludlow, and others who became 
equally distinguished. His heart was set on becoming a 
physician, and for nearly two years he studied medicine. 
Then he obeyed the higher call and consecrated himself to the 
Christian ministry. 

On graduating from the New Brunswick Seminary, several 
calls came. He accepted that of the Presbyterian Church of 
Charlotte Court-House, Virginia, and in the spring of 1855 

491 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

began his pastorate. It was an ideal charge for any man. 
The best blood of the Old Dominion was in the congregation. 
No less than eighty-six of the members were college graduates. 
In 1856 he married Miss Mary Virginia Hawes, of Richmond. 
Their home became as near the ideal as any this earth has 
known — beautiful in its comradeship, beneficent in its in- 
fluence. 

In 1858, Doctor Terhune was called to the pastorate of the 
First Reformed Dutch Church, of Newark. To decide as he 
did, must have been a singular test of faith and courage. The 
claims of material comfort, intellectual fellowship, and family 
ties on one side, on the other a depleted church, in a com- 
munity almost entirely dependent for support on manu- 
facturing interests, most of which were then bankrupt. But 
Doctor Terhune was a soldier of the cross, and the red fighting 
blood ran too strong in him to resist the opportunity that 
called for heroic self-denial, constraint, toil and trials of faith 
and patience that would, for years, tax to the utmost every 
power of heart and mind. Few men have possessed as clear 
a vision of life; for him there were no illusions in the Newark 
outlook. He knew that, in the modern city life, then just be- 
ginning, must be fought the main battle of Christianity with 
the powers of evil. His commission was to lead, and he ac- 
cepted the detail. For eighteen years Doctor Terhune re- 
mained at his post. Immediately his work began to tell for 
blessing, nor was this confined to his parish; — the entire city 
felt his presence. While his work in all its many parts was 
of the highest order, the man was always greater than his 
work. Men, women, and children instinctively loved him. 
They brought to him their problems, then felt his impression 
on their hearts. And it was abiding. To-day a great com- 
pany scattered throughout the earth thank God for what he 
wrought in them. 

In 1876, in consequence of the state of Mrs. Terhune's 
health, Doctor Terhune resigned his Newark charge, and went 
abroad. His ministry did not lapse, for all the time he la- 
bored as chaplain, first in Rome and then in Paris, having 
entire charge of the American churches there. 

492 



APPENDIX 

Immediately on his return, in 1878, he received calls from 
leading churches in Newark, Plainfield, New Haven, and 
Springfield, Massachusetts. The last named he accepted. 
There he remained for five years, honored and loved through- 
out the city. Then came another call. The Williamsburg 
Reformed Church in Brooklyn had had a remarkable history. 
At times prosperous, then on the verge of collapse. In the 
centre of a great population, with a plant capable of accom- 
modating an enormous congregation, it had never fulfilled 
its promise. Unless an unusual man, with rare gifts, not 
merely eloquence and ordinary leadership, but with almost 
divine tact, patience, and unselfishness, came to save it, the 
church would disband. Doctor Terhune loved the Old Dutch 
Church as loyally as any man who has ever served her, but 
this call must have taxed his sense of proportion. I am sure 
it was his Master's higher call that decided him to go to 
Williamsburg. He had never cared for wealth except for 
its uses, was generous in every direction, and needed all the 
salary he could win ; and the church was $80,000 in debt ; its 
membership was scattered, and its attendants divided into 
antagonistic groups. More than one friend urged him to re- 
fuse such a sacrifice. What the seven years' labor there cost 
him only God knew. He became twenty years older in ap- 
pearance, and he lost much of the splendid vitality that had 
never before failed him for any length of time. But he left 
the church united, entirely free from debt, and with a promise 
for the future never before so bright. A year abroad was 
needed to establish his broken health. 

Since then Doctor Terhune, while refusing another pastor- 
ate, has been a constant laborer. Large churches in Chicago 
and St. Louis called him. In these, he became for upward of 
a year a stated supply, but he knew that his physical strength 
was waning. A few years ago, he underwent a serious surgical 
operation, and for nearly six months lay helpless from its 
effect. Indeed, his life was despaired of. I talked with his 
surgeon, who told me that, in his long experience, he had 
"never known a patient endure greater or more constant suf- 
fering; I cannot understand his marvellous self-control. He 

493 



MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

is always bright, always thinking of others, and never of him- 
self." It was characteristic. After his recovery Doctor Ter- 
hune led an active life. The churches sought his help, and 
he was a frequent preacher in New York, Newark, and else- 
where. More than forty years ago, he purchased a tract of 
land on Pompton Lake, New Jersey. It was then a primitive 
region, to which he was attracted by the scenery and the op- 
portunity to satisfy his special recreation; for from boyhood 
he was a great fisherman. As time and means permitted, he 
made " Sunnybank" blossom into rare beauty. How he loved 
this home! There he lived close to nature, and the trees, 
flowers, streams, and sky rested and refreshed him. Because 
a true child of nature, she gave back to him rich treasures 
that are denied to most; a joy in her communion; knowledge 
of her secrets; a vision of God through her revelation. There 
dear friends gathered about him, and the ideal beauty of a 
country home was, through his inspiration, revealed to some 
for the first time. 

A year ago, Doctor and Mrs. Terhune celebrated their golden 
wedding. After a day of loving congratulations from friends 
almost innumerable, who, in body or spirit, gathered about 
them, they took their wedding journey in their carriage, driv- 
ing horses born on their place, through the country of his boy- 
hood and elsewhere. The refreshment of this fortnight of 
perfect happiness lingered on for all the remaining days of 
earth. 

More than forty years ago, while a pastor in Newark, Doc- 
tor Terhune united with Alpha Delta, an association limited 
to twelve active members, meeting monthly at their homes. 
With its founders in 1855, among whom were Drs. G. W. Ber- 
thune, Robert Davidson, A. R. Van Nest, A. B. Van Zandt, 
and others, he was intimate. After the death of Doctor 
Chambers he became the senior member, and in 1900 prepared 
its history, a copy of which is before me now. In the brief 
studies of the character of nearly two score friends, there is 
revealed the secret of his power. He possessed the genius of 
friendship as few have done. 

Ten days before the end came, he read to Alpha Delta a 

494 



APPENDIX 

paper prepared at our request, "The Story of the Jamestown, 
Virginia, Settlement and the James River Estates." Every 
monograph of Doctor Terhune had its special value, but into 
this last he poured the memories of happy years and an esti- 
mate of values in human life, as never before. All through 
there ran that subtle charm of style, tender pathos, and gentle 
humor of which he was master. And there was added a pecul- 
iar quality impossible to define. I think we all felt that, un- 
consciously, he had pictured himself, always seeing, knowing, 
loving, and inspiring the best in men. Not feeling well, he 
left us suddenly. There was no good-bye. Perhaps it is better 
so. But Alpha Delta can never be the same to us here. 

After a week of fever he fell asleep, to awaken in the Father's 
House, to the vision of the One he loved, and with Him, the 
children who had passed before. 

More than once I have been asked to describe the dis- 
tinctive characteristics of admirable men, and have named 
them "many-sided," and "standing four square." But 
as I think of Doctor Terhune, the trite phrases seem in- 
sufficient. Nor is it easy to differentiate his character. 
He was a strong man physically, intellectually, and morally. 
As few of his generation, he held his course through a long life 
of trial consistently. He had a definite hatred of sin, and 
when duty called, never hesitated to particularize the evil of 
which men were guilty. But in this he always aimed to dis- 
cover to such the good they were capable of attaining. His 
fearless courage was balanced by the finest gentleness. His 
presence was gracious, and the charm of perfect manners was 
natural in him. Instinctively, men looked up to him and re- 
membered his sayings. Doctor Terhune was a diligent man; 
all his life he was a student. He loved his books intelligently. 
His literary experience was unusual in its range and depth. 
Even more than books he studied men; their problems were 
his greatest interest. He thought these out so wisely and 
sympathetically that he seemed to possess the prophet's 
vision. 

In the pulpit, Doctor Terhune was earnest, clear, direct, and 
simple. His teachers had been rare men in the school of 

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eloquence that was the glory of America fifty years ago. On 
occasion he was equal to the best of these. As I recall his 
presence in his Newark church, I seem now to hear his wonderful 
voice ring out words that moved men to purer thinking, nobler 
living, and greater loyalty to the Master he loved. As a pastor, 
he was devoted to every interest of his people; in their homes 
no guest was as welcome. These, and other traits I could 
name, found their spring in as tender a heart as ever beat; 
constantly he carried there all God gave him to love. Next 
to the members of his family, I think his ministerial brethren 
realized most this supreme value in their friend. They knew 
he loved them as few men could. I have never heard him 
speak an unkind word of a clergyman. His presence never 
failed to hearten and stimulate them in their work. So he 
honored his manhood and his calling. He has left behind 
not only a stainless name, but living and blessed power. 



A GOLDEN WEDDING 

In her beautiful home at Pompton, New Jersey, surrounded 
by the flowers she loves so dearly, "Marion Harland," the 
celebrated writer, held court, Saturday afternoon. More prop- 
erly speaking, Dr. and Mrs. Edward Payson Terhune were "at 
home" from four to seven o'clock, the occasion being the 
celebration of their golden-wedding anniversary. 

In front of the house, upon the prettiest bit of lawn for 
miles about, was set the present that children and grand- 
children gave — a sundial made of Pompton granite, inscribed 
with the same pretty legend as that upon the famous one of 
Queen Alexandra at Sandringham: 

" Let others tell of storm or showers, 
I only mark the sunny hours." 

The little room, set aside, as upon the occasion of a real 
wedding, for the presents, revealed plenty of sentiment. There 
was a cake, made from an old Virginia recipe, baked in the 

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APPENDIX 

shape that every Virginian bride in "Marion Harland's" girl- 
hood days used to have. It had been made by an old friend. 
A great bowl of water-lilies stood near by — some one had got 
up at daybreak and scoured their haunts to get fifty of them 
to present! 

Gold purses and gold-trimmed purses — some of them with 
gold pieces inside — a gold brooch for the wife and a gold scarf- 
pin for her husband, gold fruit-knives, and Austrian glassware 
were among the gifts. 

In the receiving -party were Doctor and Mrs. Terhune's 
daughters and daughter-in-law — Mrs. Christine Terhune Her- 
rick, Mrs. Van de Water, and Mrs. Albert Payson Terhune. 
The men of the family did honors as ushers, and the boys — 
the grandsons — patrolled the porches and lawn with ices and 
salads and delicious yellow-iced cakes. 

Golden-rod and golden-glow were everywhere. The porch 
posts were hidden from sight by them, and the room where 
the receiving-party stood was banked and massed in a be- 
wilderment of blooms. 

And "Marion Harland" herself, in her beautiful gown of 
black lace, with violet orchids pinned upon her bosom, did 
honors, much after the manner of that famous hostess of old 
whose greeting was invariably "At last!" and whose parting 
word was "Already?" Only (unlike that famous hostess) 
through her greetings unmistakably rang the note of sincerity. 

Everybody wandered about in delightfully informal fashion. 
Doctor Terhune and General Buffington gossiped of old times 
in one corner; "Marion Harland," Margaret E. Sangster, May 
Riley Smith, and two or three others made an interesting group 
in another, and reminiscences were so beautiful and so many — 
"Do you remember when we used to do this or that?" — the 
sentence most constantly heard — that unconsciously you be- 
gan to regret that you, yourself, had not lived in those days, 
so splendid seemed the sentiment and the honor of the 
times. 

Everybody came who could. Some had travelled all day 
to get there, and must travel all night to get home again. Let- 
ters — there were hundreds of them, for it seemed that every- 

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MARION HARLAND'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

body who even knew her slightly, wanted to send some word 
of greeting to "Marion Harland." 

Among the invited guests were Prof, and Mrs. John W. 
Burgess, Prof, and Mrs. William H. Carpenter, Prof, and 
Mrs. B. D. Woodward, of Columbia; Miss Laura D. Gill, 
Dean of Barnard College; Dr. and Mrs. G. H. Fox, Mrs. 
Henry Villard, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Scribner, Mr. and Mrs. 
G. H. Putnam, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Lauterbach, the Rev. Dr. 
George Alexander, Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter Johnson, Mr. and 
Mrs. Albert Bigelow Paine, Mr. and Mrs. George Cary Eggle- 
ston, the Rev. Dr. and Mrs. James I. Vance, of Newark, New 
Jersey; Mr. and Mrs. Talcott Williams, Mr. and Mrs. Francis 
Howard Williams, Mr. and Mrs. Churchill Williams, of Phila- 
delphia; Gen. and Mrs. A. R. Buffington, Mrs. Margaret E. 
Sangster, Miss Ida Tarbell, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Smith. — 
Philadelphia North American, September 2, 1906. 



THE END 



3^4-77-9 



